K*WiftMff»1*H 


—1..     1MB — — 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^NGELfcS 

■•fc"  NORMAL  SCHOOL 


7s 


LOS  ANGELES 
STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL 


i 


HOW  TO  ENJOY  PICTURES 


BY 


M.    S.    EMERY 


WITH  A  SPECIAL  CHAPTER  OX 

PICTURES   IN   THE   SCHOOL-ROOM 

By  STELLA   SKINNER 

'  //7S3 


"  Do  you  think  Leonardo's  wonderful  power  of  delineation  grievous 
to  see,  because  so  wonderful,  and  so  hopeless  of  attainment  ?  No,  it  is 
delightful  and  full  of  hope,  if  your  hope  is  the  right  one,  of  being  one 
day  able  to  rejoice  more  in  what  others  are,  than  in  what  you  are 
yourself,  and  more  in  the  strength  that  is  forever  above  you,  than  in 
that  you  can  ever  attain.,'  — John  Ruskin. 


V 


THE  PRANG  EDUCATIONAL   COMPANY 
BOSTON        NEW  YORK         CHICAGO 


IZou.  /eo2 


Copyright,  1S9S, 

Bt  the  pkang  educational  company. 


Nortoooti  IJkess 

J.  S.  dishing  &  Co.      Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


ARTS 

ST/TE  NO!-        SCHO! 

CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Artists  Represented vii 

I.     The  Enjoyment  of  Pictures 1 

II.     Landscapes  : 

Riverbank  with  Windmill  (Ruysdael)  8 

Morning:  Dance  of  Nymphs  (Corot)  14 

The  Fighting  Temeraire  '(Turner)  19 

III.  Buildings  and  Street  Scenes  : 

Glimpse  at  Karnak  (Warren)    .....  25 
Madison  Square  (Ilassam)         .         .         .  ■       .         .30 

Old  Street  in  Gray  (Pennell) 33 

Street  in  Siena  (Woodbury) 36 

IV.  Pictures   that  tell  a  Story  : 

Curiosity  (Pasini)       .......  42 

The  Alarm  (Detaille) 47 

Othello  (Becker) .  51 

Domestic  Interior  (Pletsch)      .....  54 

V.     Animals: 

Return  to  the  Farm  (Troyon)  .....  59 

Study  of  Cats  (Lambert) ,64 

Ploughing  in  the  Nivernais  (Bonheur)      ...  68 

The  Hare  and  the  Tortoise  (Church)        ...  71 

VI.     Portraits  : 

Mona  Lisa  (Da  Vinci) 74 

Portrait  (Titian)         ....  81 

Wife  and  Children  (Rubens)     .....  85 

Young  Man,  Musing  (Rembrandt)  ....  89 

iii 


IV 


CONTENTS 


VII.     Studies  of  Life  and  Character  : 

Salome  (Regnault)     .... 
.Punch  and  Judy  at  the  Convent  (Blaas) 
The  Spinner  (Maas)  .... 
Joan  of  Arc  (Bastien-Lepage)  . 
s*  iEsop  (Velasquez)      .... 
The  First  Step  (Millet)     . 

VIII.     Illustrations  of  Legend  and  Fancy: 
Circe  (Burne-Jones)  .... 
Midas  and  his  Daughter  (Gibson)     . 
Death's  Door  (Blake) 
Electricity  (Puvis  de  Chavannes) 
Thetis  and  the  Nereids  (Flaxman)  . 

IX.     Pictures  with  Religious  Themes: 

Madonna  of  the  Louvre  (Botticelli)  . 

Holy  Family  (Murillo) 

Madonna  of  the  Burgomaster  (Holbein) 

Madonna  of  the  Donors  (Van  Dyck) 

Sistine  Madonna  (Raphael) 

St.  Anthony  of  Padua  (Murillo) 

The  Pilgrims  at  Emmaus  (Rembrandt) 

Jeremiah  (Michelangelo)  . 

Moses,  Elijah,  and  Joshua  (Sargent) 


PAGE 

95 
99 
104 
109 
112 
117 


123 
127 
130 
134 

140 


144 
151 
155 

161 
166 
173 

178 
182 

187 


X.     The  Pages  of  a  Magazine  : 

Boston  Public  Library  (Peixotto)     . 
Landing  (Castaigne) 
Paul  Revere's  Ride  (Yohn) 
Lions  (Van  Muyden) 
Primary  School  in  Brittany  (Geoffroy) 
Pandora  (Gibson)       .... 
Geraniums  (Turner) .... 
Moonlight  Sky  (Longfellow)     . 

XL     The  Journey  from  Artist  to  Reader; 
Photographs        ..... 
Half-tone  Blocks         .... 
Wood-cuts  .         .         ., 
Stereotypes  ..... 


198 

202 

206 

209 

212 

217. 

220 

224 


231 
233 
238 
239 


CONTENTS 


Zinc  plates 

Etchings 

Steel  Engravings 

Wood  Engravings 

Electrotypes 

Lithographs 


Illustrations: 

Cottage  with  Palings  (Rembrandt) 

Moths  (Clifford) 

Portrait  of  Lincoln  (Oe  Camp) 


PAfiK 

239 

240 

I'll 
211 
217 

2  is 


241 
245 
249 


XII.    Pictures  in  the  School-room  : 

Preparation  of  walls,  tinting,  etc. 
Framing  and  Hanging 
Choice  and  Estimate  of  Pictures 
Portfolio  Collections  . 
Study  of  Masterpieces 
Pictures  in  the  Study  of 
"/■Language     . 

Nature 
^Literature    . 
Mythology  . 
Geography  . 
:story 
Pictures  and  Elementary  Art  Study 

Illustrations  : 

Shepherdess  with  Sheep  (Millet) 
Landscape  with  Windmill  (Rembrandt) 
The  Willows  (Corot) 


255 
257 
260 
260 
261 

205 
266 
269 
270 
272 
274 
277 


281 
283 
2S5 


Appendix  : 

List  of  Reference  Books 


289 


STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL. 


"- 


J, 


ARTISTS    REPRESENTED 


ITALIAN 


Botticelli  (1447-1515)    . 
Da  Vinci  (1452-1519)    . 
Michelangelo  (1475-1564) 
Titian  (1477-1571  i) 
Raphael  (1483-1520)      . 
Pasini  (Modern)   . 


Madonna,  Child,  and  St.  John 
Mona  Lisa 
Jeremiah  . 
Portrait  of  Himself 
Sistine  Madonna 
Curiosity  . 


PAGE 

.     Louvre  147 

77 

Sistine  Chapel  183 

.      Berlin    83 

.  Dresden  169 

.    43 


Rembrandt  (1607-1669) 


Ruysdael  (1625-1682) 
Maas  (1632-1693)  . 


DUTCH 

Pilgrims  at  Emmaus 
Landscape  with  Windmill 
A  Young  Man,  Musing    . 
Cottage  with  Palings 
Landscape  with  Windmill 
The  Spinner     . 


.     Louvre  179 

.  283 

.     91 

.  241 

Amsterdam      9 

107 


Rubens  (1577-1640) 
Van  Dyck  (1599-1641) 


FLEMISH 

Wife  and  Children  . 
Madonna  with  Donors 


Louvre    87 
163 


GERMAN 


Holbein  (1497-1543) 
Becker  (1S20-        ) 
Pletsch  (  ) 


Madonna  of  the  Burgomaster         .  Dresden  157 

Othello 53 

Interior  with  Children     .        ,        .        .        .57 


Velasquez  (1599-1660) 
Murillo  (1618-1682) 


SPANISH 

/Esop        ....     Madrid  Museum  115 

Holy  Family Louvre  153 

St.  Anthony  and  the  Christ  Child  .      Berlin  175 


vn 


vm 


ARTISTS   REPRESENTED 


Corot  (179(5-1875) 


Puvis  de  Chavannes  (1824- 
Troyon  (1810-1865)       . 
Millet  (1814-1875) 

Bonheur,  R.  (1828-        ) 
Regnault  (184:5-1871)    . 
Bastien-Lepage  (1848-1884) 
Detaille  (1848-        )      . 
Lambert  (1825-        )     . 
Geoffroy  (  ) 


FRENCH 

PAGE 

Morning Louvre    15 

The  Willows 285 

Electricity        .        .  Boston  Public  Library  135 
Return  to  the  Farm  .         .         .     Louvre    (il 

The  First  Step  ......  119 

Knitting  Shepherdess  with  Sheep  .  .  .  281 
Ploughing  in  the  Nivernais  .  Luxembourg  69 
Salome  .  .  .  Mme.  de  Cassin,  Paris  97 
Joan  of  Arc,  MetropoVn  Museum,  N.Y. City  111 

The  Alarm 49 

Study  of  Cats  ....  Luxembourg  65 
Primary  School  in  Brittany    ....  215 


Van  Muyden  ( 


SWISS 


)      .     Lions 


.  211 


Blaas  (1843-        ) 


AUSTRIAN 

« 

Punch  and  Judy  at  the  Convent 


101 


ENGLISH 


Flaxman  (1755-1826)    . 
Blake  (1757-1827) 
Turner  (1775-1851) 
Burue-Jones  (1833-1898) 


Thetis  and  Nereids 141 

Death's  Door 133 

The  Fighting  Teme'raire,  Nat.  Gal.,  London    21 
Circe 125 


Sargent . 

Castaigne 
Church  . 
De  Camp 
Gibson    . 


Gifford   . 
Hassam  . 
Longfellow 
Peixotto 
Pennell  . 
Turner   . 
Warren 
Woodbury 
Yolm      .' 


AMERICAN  (by  Birth  or  by  Adoption) 

.     Moses,  Elijah,  and  Joshua      . 

Boston  Public  Library 
Landing    .... 
The  Hare  and  the  Tortoise 
Lincoln      .... 
Pandora    .... 
King  Midas  and  his  Daughter 
Moths       .... 
Madison  Square 
Moonlight  Sky 
Boston  Public  Library    . 
Old  Street  in  Gray  . 
Geraniums 

A  Glimpse  at  Karnak 
Street  in  Siena 
Paul  Revere's  Ride 


189 
203 

73 
249 
219 
129 
245 

31 
225 
199 

:;.-» 

22:! 

27 

39 


HOW   TO    ENJOY   PICTURES 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    ENJOYMENT   OF   PICTURES 

//72?3 

THIS  little  book  has  a  distinctly  limited  purpose.  Its 
aim  is  to  help  those  who  now  find  pleasure  in 
studying  pictures  to  find  still  more  pleasure ;  to  help 
those  who  care  but  little  for  pictures  to  see  how  much 
delight  and  inspiration  may  be  theirs  for  the  taking  ;  to 
suggest  ways  of  studying  photographs  and  other  inex- 
pensive prints. 

No  attempt  is  made  in  these  pages  to  discuss  theories 
of  fine  art,  or  to  trace  the  historic  development  of  dif- 
ferent schools  of  painting.  The  literature  already  exist- 
ing in  regard  to  these  subjects  is  extensive,  and  additions 
to  it  are  continually  being  made  by  critics  who  spend 
their  lives  in  art  study.  A  brief  list  of  some  of  the 
more  desirable  art  books  for  reference  and  for  systematic 
study  is  given  in  an  appendix.  This  little  volume  itself 
is  not  offered  as  a  contribution  to  art  criticism.  It  does 
not  treat  at  all  of  original  paintings  as  seen  in  the  world's 
great  galleries  and  cathedrals,  but  only  of  such  repro- 
ductions as  are  practically  accessible  to  everybody  in  the 
form  of  photographs  and  prints  of  various  inexpensive 
kinds. 

B  1 


2  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

The  pictures  specially  selected  as  texts  for  study  have 
been  arranged,  not  according  to  the  dates  of  their  pro- 
duction nor  according  to  schools  of  art,  but  according  to 
subject,  as  evident  at  the  first  glance. 

Photographs  direct  from  nature  are  not  here  considered 
at  all.  The  pleasure  we  take  in  them  is  more  akin  to  the 
interest  we  feel  in  our  immediate,  visible  surroundings 
than  to  the  interest  we  feel  (or  may  feel)  in  photographs 
from  works  of  art.<(^  Through  studying  reproductions  of 
artists'  paintings,  we  come  into  touch  not  simply  with  the 
reflected  images  of  real  things  such  as  we  see  in  the  world 
about  us,  but  with  the  thoughts  and  feelings,  the  joys, 
hopes,  and  aspirations,  of  some  of  the  great  men  who  have 
looked  at  the  world  and  lived  in  it.  If  we  can  gradually 
learn  to  look  with  their  clearer  eyes  and  to  see  the  beauty 
which  delighted  their  more  appreciative  souls,  our  own 
world  becomes  larger  and  lovelier  through  that  experience. 

It  is,  of  course,  idle  to  suppose  that  one  can  become 
a  competent  judge  of  "  art "  simply  through  studying 
photographs  and  other  prints.  But  it  is  not  in  the  least 
necessary  for  most  of  us  to  become  judges  and  critics. 
What  is  heartily  to  be  desired  is  that  we  shall  all  learn  a 
larger  measure  of  appreciation.  We  should  study  great 
pictures  as  we  study  great  books,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
being  able  to  pass  learned  criticisms  upon  them,  but  for 
the  purpose  of  appropriating  and  enjoying  our  share  of 
whatever  they  have  to  give  us. 

Miss  Anna  Brackett,  in  her  book  entitled  The  Technique 
of  Rest,  gives  us  a  bit  of  sage  counsel  on  this  point :  — 

"  It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  it  is  the  rest  of  the  world  and 
not  you  that  holds  the  great  share  of  the  world's  wealth,  and  that 
you  must  allow  yourself  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  world  if  you 
would  become  a  sharer  in  the  gain  of  all  the  ages  to  your  infinite 


THE    ENJOYMENT    OF   PICTURES  3 

advantage.  Many  lose  all  the  possible  benefits  to  be  won  by 
travel  because  they  have  not  the  necessary  passivity.  You  should 
go  to  the  picture  galleries  and  museums  of  sculpture  to  be  acted 
upon,  and  not  to  express  or  try  to  form  your  own  perfectly 
futile  opinion.  It  makes  no  difference  to  you  or  to  the  world 
what  you  may  think  of  any  great  work  of  art!  This  is  not  the 
question  ;  the  point  is  how  it  affects  you.  The  picture  is  the 
judge  of  your  capacity,  not  you  of  its  excellence.  The  world  has 
long  ago,  perhaps,  passed  upon  it,  and  now  it  is  for  the  work  to 
estimate  you.  Jf,  without  knowing  that  a  certain  picture  is  from 
the  hand  of  a  great  master,  you  find  yourself  wonderfully  at- 
tracted by  it,  and  drawn  to  it  over  and  over  again,  you  may  be 
glad  that  its  verdict  upon  you  is  favorable." 

The  knowledge  of  great  pictures  which  can  be  obtained 
from  such  illustrations  as  are  included  in  these  pages  — 
reproductions  of  reproductions  —  is  necessarily  superficial 
in  a  certain  sense  ;  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  such 
knowledge  is  not  worth  having.  In  the  first  place,  a 
work  of  art  which  is  really  great,  in  any  immortal  sense, 
will  bear  a  good  deal  of  dilution  at  the  hands  of  "process" 
reproducers  and  still  have  tonic  qualities  left  in  it.  Its 
pleasure-giving  power  may  be  but  a  small  fraction  of  that 
possessed  by  the  original  work  in  a  gallery  three  thousand 
miles  away,  but  that  measure  of  power  which  remains  is 
well  worth  invoking.  And,  in  the  second  place,  "  a  little 
learning "  is  not  a  dangerous  thing  unless  its  possessor 
mistakes  it  or  tries  to  pass  it  off  for  great  learning.  In 
these  days,  when  any  serious  kind  of  labor  calls  for  un- 
stinted devotion  of  the  worker's  time  and  strength,  it  is 
evidently  impracticable  for  average  busy  people  to  make 
any  thorough  study  of  many  subjects  outside  of  the 
routine  of  their  required  work.  One  is  consequently 
often  reduced  to  choice  between  slight  knowledge  and 
none  at  all  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  picture  study,  where  a 
very  little  increase  of  sympathetic  understanding  enlarges 


x 


4  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

so  much  our  resources  of  happy  imagination,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  a  little  is  better  than  nothing.  In 
fact  the  study  of  pictures  probably  constitutes,  for  those 
who  really  care  for  it,  a  resource  of  rest,  delight,  and 
inspiration  second  to  none  within  the  reach  of  every-day 
people.  Nature,  books,  music,  all  have  charms  to  make 
us  forget  weariness  and  worries.  We  learn  to  recall 
their  messages  in  imagination.  We  learn  to  fill  up  the 
dreary  expanses  of  a  sleepless  night  on  a  railroad  train 
with  memories  of  beautiful  places  far  distant  in  time 
and  space,  or  with  favorite  poems,  the  ones  that  live 
contentedly  in  memory,  or  with  passages  from  noble 
musical  compositions  that  we  have  loved  till  they  have 
become  a  part  of  us.  Different  people  take  to  one  or 
another  of  these  lines  of  personal  resource,  according  as 
their  habitual  enthusiasms  are  for  nature,  for  literature, 
or  for  music.  It  seems  less  common  for  people  to  appro- 
priate great  pictures  to  themselves  in  this  intimate  fashion, 
so  that  these  can  be  called  up  before 

"...  the  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude," 

yet  many  do  possess  this  happy  gift. 

One  of  America's  greatest  artists,  William  Morris  Hunt, 
used  to  urge  his  studio  pupils  to  study  the  best  pictures 
over  and  over  again:  .  .  .  "  You  must  set  yourselves  ahead 
by  studying  fine  things.  .  .  .  I've  told  you  over  and  over 
again  whose  works  to  draw,  —  Michelangelo,  Raphael, 
Albert  Diirer,  Hans  Holbein,  Mantegna.  Get  hold  of 
something  of  theirs.  Hang  it  up  in  your  room  ;  trace 
it,  copy  it,  draw  it  from  memory  over  and  over,  until 
you  own  it  as  you  own  '  Casabianca '  and  '  Mary  had  a 
Little  Lamb.' " 


THE  ENJOYMENT   OF   PICTURES  5 

Most  of  us  could  not  carry  out  this  advice  in  detail, 
so  far  as  the  copying  is  concerned;  still  there  is  here  a 
hint  for  us  all.  Suppose  we  have  pored  over  the  photo- 
graph of  some  masterpiece  till  we  know  it  literally  by 
heart  and  can  see  it  complete  with  our  eyes  shut,  with 
all  its  expressive  masses  and  outlines,  and  all  its  harmonies 
of  lights  and  darks,  —  should  we  not  be  passing  rich  ? 
And  it  can  be  done.  Anybody  who  cares  to  do  it  can 
gradually  accumulate  a  little  picture  gallery  of  this  sort 
all  in  his  own  head,  cpuite  independent  of  circumstances, 
of  time,  and  place,  and  money. 

One  of  the  leading  art  critics  of  our  own  country, 
John  C.  Van  Dyke,  says :  — 

"  You  must  look  at  pictures  studiously,  earnestly,  honestly.  It 
will  take  years  before  you  come  to  a  full  appreciation  of  art;  but 
when  at  last  you  have  it,  you  will  be  possessed  of  one  of  the 
purest,  loftiest,  and  most  ennobling  pleasures  that  the  civilized 
world  can  offer  you." 

In  choosing  pictures  for  this  intimate  friendliness  of 
companionship,  one  general  rule  is  safe,  —  choose  the 
best.  Every  artist  who  knows  how  to  draw  at  all  has 
something  to  give  the  public  in  the  way  of  pleasure  and 
profit ;  but  the  greatest  men  have  the  most  and  the  best 
to  give.  Anthony  Hope  is  all  very  well,  but  Shake- 
speare is  sure  to  be  better.  As  among  books,  so  among 
pictures,  the  best  names  are  almost  always  a  safe  guide- 
board  pointing  the  way  to  a  Palace  Beautiful  whose  win- 
dows look  out  towards  the  Delectable  Mountains. 


£ 


6  HOW  TO  ENJOY   PICTURES 

In  the  following  pages  author  and  reader  study  to- 
gether a  number  of  pictures,  looking  for  what  is  spe- 
cially interesting  and  beautiful  in  each  one.  Pictures, 
like  people,  have  individual  character  and  charm,  and  he 
gets  most  pleasure  out  of  them  who  takes  them  for  what 
they  are,  not  criticising  them  for  their  failure  to  be  some- 
thing else.  No  attempt  is  made  to  point  out  technical 
defects  or  mistakes.  Teachers  and  students  of  art  will 
doubtless  see  these  for  themselves  where  they  exist.  For 
the  most  of  us  it  seems  much  more  important  to  delight 
in  what  is  inspiring  and  lovely  than  to  detect  small  errors 
of  workmanship. 

It  is  possible  that  these  pages  may  come  to  the  notice 
of  picture  lovers  who  deprecate  studying  drawings  in 
detail,  to  whom  the  anal}rtic  interpretation  of  a  work  of 
art  seems  a  species  of  sacrilege  and  disenchantment. 
While  it  may  be  true  that  the  most  richly  gifted  or 
highly  cultivated  sensibility  often  takes  in  the  beauty 
and  the  spiritual  significance  of  a  picture  with  uncon- 
scious aesthetic  recognition  and  appreciation,  it  remains 
also  true  that  different  people  have  very  different  ways 
of  absorbing  ideas  and  feelings  and  of  enjoying  these. 
There  cannot  reasonably  be  one  exclusive  highway  to 
be  followed  by  us  all.  The  author's  experience  and 
observation  have  led  to  the  belief  that  many  of  us  can 
best  reach  the  point  of  fair  appreciation  and  honest  en- 
joyment of  pictures  through  studying  them  in  such  ways 
as  are  indicated  in  the  following  chapters.  It  is  by  no 
means  assumed  that  the  methods  here  suggested  will  be 
the  best  for  everybody,  or  that  they  will  always  be  the 
best  for  any  one  reader.  The  author's  hope  is  that  such 
readers  as  do  find  these  methods  of  study  desirable  may 
go   on  by  themselves  to  apply  and  improve  upon  them, 


THE    ENJOYMENT   OF   PICTURES  7 

and  so  enter  into  fuller  and  happier  possession  of  an  in- 
heritance which  belongs  to  us  all. 

"  Who  sees  may  be  wise.     Who  knows  shall  be  wise. 
Who  admires  is  wise." 


CHAPTER   II 

LANDSCAPES 

A  N  artist  is,  in  the  first  place,  one  who  knows  how  to 
see,  and,  in  the  second  place,  one  who  has  a  gift  for 
making  ns  see  with  him. 

Consider  the  sky,  for  instance.  There  are  people  who 
seldom  look  at  it  at  all  save  to  consult  it  on  problems  of 
personal  convenience.  Others  take  momentary  pleasure 
in  the  colors  and  fleeting  lights  and  shadows  of  the 
heavenly  show,  but  think  very  little  about  it  between 
these  moments.  Still  others  are  haunted  by  a  sense  of 
majesty  and  mystery  in  the  elemental  forces  playing  about 
our  little  world.  They  ask  us  to  stop,  to  look  and  listen 
with  them. 

Ruysdael's 1  picture  of  the  windmill  by  the  shore  of  a 
Dutch  river  is  full  of  the  sense  of  mysterious,  mighty, 
elemental  forces  in  nature.  Our  first  impression,  as  we 
look  at  the  print,  is  that  of  vast  spaces  through  which  the 
wind,  hushed  for  a  moment,  will  soon  be  blowing.  Those 
great,  soft  clouds,  rolling  up  across  the  sky,  mean  coming 
storm.  We  can  see  them  move,  with  slow,  inevitable 
transformations,  behind  and  beyond  the  waiting  windmill. 
We  feel  as  if  we  were  very  little  creatures  indeed,  and 
the  expanse  of  the  heavens  something  marvellously  great. 
These  hushed  minutes  before  the  storm  comes  are  minutes 

1  Jakob  Kuysda^l  (1625-1682),  one  of  the  greatest  Dutch  landscape 
painters. 

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10  HOW    TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

of  apprehensive  suspense.  The  broad  stream  has  some- 
thing strangely  mysterious  about  it  too.  It  flows  silently 
on  and  on,  and  we  cannot  stay  its  coming.  It  began, 
maybe,  as  a  feeble  little  stream  somewhere  in  another 
country,  a  long  way  off,  but  here  its  floods  are  full  of 
quietly  ominous  strength,  like  the  strength  of  some  dumb 
creature  whose  purposes  are  unspoken  —  only  guessed. 
Yes,  we  are  very  little  people,  moving  tiny  distances  on 
the  surface  of  a  great,  mysterious  earth,  with  still  greater 
and  more  awe-inspiring  spaces  all  above  and  around.  Yet 
we  are  daring  and  adventuresome  when  we  have  the  en- 
couragement of  each  other's  company  and  support.  We 
fell  trees  and  dig  stones  out  of  the  earth  to  make  homes. 
We  even  bid  the  silent  waters  and  the  unseen  winds  of 
heaven  come  help  us  about  our  little  affairs,  turning  our 
mill-wheels  to  make  us  bread,  and  carrying  us  to  and  fro 
in  our  frail  boats  on  our  brief  little  errands.  How  do  we 
ever  dare? 

Was  it  something  like  this  that  our  Dutch  friend  felt, 
three  hundred  years  ago  ? 

Just  look  at  the  picture  again  and  see  in  how  many 
unobtrusive  ways  he  makes  us  realize  the  quiet  but  tre- 
mendous power  that  surrounds  us  everywhere  in  the 
forces  exerted  by  air  and  water.  In  the  first  place,  he 
devoted  almost  two-thirds  of  the  whole  picture  space  to 
the  sky.  That  space  and  the  masses  of  soft-rolling  clouds 
give  us  a  feeling  of  air  against  our  faces.  The  huge  wind- 
mill, with  its  wide-reaching  arms,  being  the  one  prominent, 
emphatic  feature  of  the  landscape,  makes  the  strongest 
impression,  and  that  impression  is  one  of  wind  just  ready 
to  blow.  Notice  how  the  oblique  positions  chosen  for  the 
arms  of  the  windmill  suggest  motion.  If  the  arms  had 
been  drawn  exactly  vertical  and  horizontal,  + ,  they  would 


LANDSCAPES  11 

not  have  looked  half  so  much  like  arms  made  to  revolve. 
An  upright  cross  is  instinctively  associated  in  our  minds 
with  stability  in  one  position.  An  x,  on  the  contrary, 
gives  us  a  sense  of  motion  either  onward  or  rotary  or  both. 
In  this  case  we  know  the  motion  of  the  arms  must  be  very 
slight,  if  indeed  they  are  moving  at  all,  for  we  can  dis- 
tinguish the  separate  ribs  in  the  construction  of  the  arms 
-  something  which  it  would  of  course  be  impossible  to  do 
if  they  were  moving  rapidly.  The  sails  on  the  boats  are 
still  another  reminder  of  expected  wind  ;  their  straight- 
ness  now,  and  the  perfect  reflection  of  the  nearest  one  in 
the  water,  show  that  the  air  is  nearly  still,  as  Ave  have 
often  felt  it  just  before  a  shower.  The  heavy  roof  of  the 
house  beyond  the  mill  is  suggestive  of  the  need  of  shelter 
from  wind  and  storm.  Evidently  the  wind  can  blow 
vigorously  here,  when  its  time  has  come.  In  the  very 
foreground,  the  tall  sedges  and  grasses  at  the  water's  edge, 
bowing  this  way  and  that,  remind  us  once  more  of  the 
masterful  air  to  which  they  lend  such  easy  submission. 
No  wonder  the  picture  gives  us  a  feeling  of  the  invisible 
majesty  of  the  coming  wind. 

Then  look  at  the  water.  It  occupies  a  large  share  of 
all  the  picture  space  which  is  not  sky.  The  curving 
shores  behind  which  the  river  hides  every  now  and  then 
have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  our  feeling  of  its  unaccount- 
ableness.  We  quite  lose  sight  of  it  in  the  distance.  The 
last  gleam  of  the  water,  as  we  see  it  in  this  print,  is  hardly 
more  than  a  speck  of  light.  It  vanishes  and  we  can  trace 
it  no  farther.  This  is  at  once  a  charm  for  the  eye  and  a 
challenge  to  the  imagination.  It  makes  us  speculate  as 
to  whence  the  stream  comes  and  whither  it  is  bound. 
The  introduction  of  two  boats,  one  nearer  than  the  other, 
adds  to  the  suggestion  of  motion  in  the  water  or  through 


12  HOW   TO  ENJOY  PICTURES 

the  water,  which  might  have  been  made  by  the  sight  of 
one  boat  alone.  The  lapping  of  the  waves  on  the  fore- 
ground shore  is  significant,  too,  strengthening  our  sense 
of  motion  in  the  stream  as  a  whole,  and  the  sight  of  the 
bank  below  the  windmill,  so  carefully  protected  by  its 
breakwater  to  prevent  its  being  worn  away,  makes  us 
realize  that  those  little  waves  which  now  look  so  mild 
have  it  in  them,  on  occasions,  to  beat  fiercely  upon  the 
grassy  banks  and  even  clutch  at  the  old  footpath  along 
the  riverside. 

Notice  the  direction  of  the  principal  lines  in  the  pict- 
ure. They  did  not  simply  happen.  This  old  master 
drew  them  with  intention.  He  had,  to  start  with,  an  ob- 
long space,  divided  into  two  unequal  horizontal  parts  :  the 
upper  one  (sky)  much  larger  than  the  lower  ;  the  lower 
space  itself  divided  about  equally  between  land  and 
water.  To  avoid  the  monotony  of  too  many  long  hori- 
zontal lines,  dividing  the  picture  into  awkward  stripes, 
he  chose  a  standpoint  from  which  the  general  lines  of  the 
shore  would  appear  oblique  to  the  exact  horizontals  and 
verticals.  The  details,  too,  have  their  artistic  reason  for 
being  just  as  they  are.  The  tall,  dignified  figure  of  the 
windmill,  based  on  the  earth  but  standing  up  high  into 
the  sky,  holds  the  ground  space  and  the  sky  space  to- 
gether, giving  a  pleasant  effect  of  unity  to  the  landscape 
as  a  whole.  In  the  windmill  itself,  the  oblique  lines  of 
the  roof  and  arms  and  the  curved  lines  of  the  gallery 
rails  combine  with  the  vertical  lines  of  the  main  wall  to 
make  a  shape  as  attractive  to  the  eye  as  it  is  significant 
to  the  imagination.  Our  eyes  like  variet}^  of  line  some- 
what as  our  bodily  muscles  like  variety  of  exercise. 

The  beauty  of  the  picture  as  a  whole  is  greatly  in- 
creased by  the    unobtrusive    repetition  of    each   kind   of 


LANDSCAPES  13 

lines,  —  vertical,  horizontal,  oblique,  curved.  Without 
knowing  at  the  moment  just  why,  our  eye  is  instinc- 
tively gratified  by  the  repetition  or  echoing  of  a  pleasant 
line  somewhat  as  the  ear  is  gratified  by  the  rhythmical 
repetition  of  pleasant  sounds.  Here,  in  this  picture, 
where  the  emphatic  note  —  so  to  speak  —  is  the  upright 
windmill,  we  have  its  vertical  repeated  over  and  over,  — 
in  the  masts,  the  nearest  sail,  the  walls  and  pinnacles  of 
the  church,  in  the  little  building  with  the  arched  open- 
ing, in  the  tower  at  the  right  end  of  the  picture,  even  in 
the  posts  of  the  breakwater.  The  level  line  of  the  far 
horizon  is  repeated  by  the  hull  of  the  large  boat,  the 
cross-beams  of  the  breakwater,  and  the  ridges  of  the 
waves  at  play  in  the  little  cove.  The  oblique  lines  of 
the  windmill-arms  answer  those  of  the  receding  shore, 
and  are  echoed  again,  more  faintly,  in  the  roofs  of  the 
house  and  the  church,  fading  into  a  playful  trace  of 
resemblance  in  the  bending  grasses  by  the  water's  edge. 
The  gently  rounding  masses  of  the  trees  about  the  mill 
are  repeated  on  the  distant  point  at  the  bend  of  the  river, 
and  faintly  suggested  again  in  the  rolling  masses  of  cloud 
far  overhead.  These  may  seem  small  points,  but  they  are 
actually  points  of  great  importance  in  making  the  artist's 
picture  a  thing  of  beauty,  something  to  be  pored  over  and 
to  be  admired  more  and  more,  the  better  we  come  to 
know  it. 


* 


14  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Very  different  in  its  general  spirit  and  effect  is  Corot's 1 
Morning,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  The  Dance,  of 
the  Nymphs.  We  have  here  an  open  space  just  at  the 
edge  of  a  forest.  The  sun  is  shining  out  through  the 
morning  mist,  and  a  band  of  wood  sprites  are  frisking  and 
frolicking  over  the  grass.  Near  the  right  side  of  the  pict- 
ure one  of  the  nymphs  jokingly  pulls  a  companion  by  the 
arm,  teasing  her  to  come  join  in  the  fun. 

The  feeliug  in  this  picture  is  one  of  mingling  mist  and 
sunshine,  of  the  awakening  song  of  birds,  of  delight  in 
the  simple  fact  of  being  alive.  Those  who  know  Words- 
worth's "  Ode  on  Immortality  "  by  heart  are  reminded  at 
once  of  some  of  its  word  pictures  where  the  irresistible 
charms  of  spring  and  sunshine  have  been  set  in  half  a 
dozen  lines  of  verse.  What  we  have  here  is  a  certain 
sort  of  impression  about  nature  and  life,  rather  than  the 
exact  photographic  images  of  trees  and  rocks  and  shrub- 
bery and  dancers.  That  was  Corot's  way  of  working. 
He  loved  nature  with  boyish  enthusiasm  up  to  the  very 
end  of  a  long,  busy  life  ;  he  knew  her  ways,  not  merely 
as  the  scientist  knows  them  in  a  cool,  literal,  intellectual 
fashion,  but  by  heart.  He  once  said  of  his  own  habits  of 
work  :  — 

"  After  one  of  my  excursions  I  invite  nature  to  come  and  spend 
a  few  days  with  me.  .  .  .  Pencil  in  hand,  I  hear  the  birds  singing, 
the  trees  rustling  in  the  wind  ;  I  see  the  running  brooks  and  the 
streams  charged  with  the  thousand  reflections  of  sky  and  earth, 
—  nay,  the  very  sun  rises  and  sets  in  my  studio !  " 

Hold  the  page  off  at  arm's  length,  so  as  to  lose  sight  of 
the  small  details,  and  see  how  beautifully  the  dark  parts 
and  the  light  parts  of  the  picture  blend  with  each  other. 

1  Jean  Baptiste  Camille  Corot,  one  of  the  most  famous  French  land- 
scape painters  (1796-1875). 


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16  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

The  soft,  feathery  masses  of  the  foliage  make  the  most 
delicate  of  transitions  from  the  deep  shade  to  the  full  sun- 
shine and  the  misty  haze  of  the  distance.  The  picture  is 
pleasant  to  look  at,  even  when  we  do  not  quite  see  what  it 
is  all  about.  If  we  bring  it  gradually  nearer,  so  that  the 
detail  shows  more  and  more  plainly,  trees  and  rocks  and 
dancing  nymphs  seem  gradually  to  take  shape  out  of  airy 
haze,  as  they  did  in  the  painter's  happy  fancy.  There  are 
touches  in  the  foreground  that  must  mean  flowers  abloom 
among  the  wet  grasses.  The  slender  tree  beyond  the 
dancers,  stretching  itself  up  and  up  as  if  it  were  just 
waking  from  sleep,  has  delicate  young  foliage  as  much 
like  a  shimmering  veil  as  like  separate  leaves  ;  do  we  not 
all  remember  seeing  just  that  effect  sometimes  in  spring 
and  wishing  it  could  last  weeks  rather  than  change  to  the 
more  robust  masses  of  June  and  July?  And  look  at 
those  tree  trunks  off  at  the  right,  dappled  and  splashed 
with  sunshine.  Some  lover  of  out-of-doors  has  said  that 
such  touches  of  sunshine  in  a  landscape  are  like  affection- 
ate little  caresses  from  an  unseen  hand. 

It  would  perhaps  be  difficult  to  identify  the  trees, 
botanically,  but  who  cares  to  collect  herbarium  specimens 
on  a  fairies'  playground?  These  trees  were  intimate 
friends  of  Corot's — friends  whom  he  valued  more  for 
their  souls  than  for  the  cut  of  their  clothes.  What  he 
wanted  to  show  us  about  them  was  chiefly  their  vigorous, 
upward  growth  in  response  to  sun  and  shower,  their 
lovely  play  with  the  light,  and  their  attitude  of  protection 
towards  the  earth  below,  like  that  of  tall  children  who 
begin  to  take  care  of  their  mother.  Even  the  nymphs 
and  fauns  have  something  of  the  hazy  outline  of  the  foli- 
age above  their  heads.  They  were  meant  to  look  so. 
The  artist   did   not  intend  to   draw  them  with  full  ana- 


LANDSCAPES  17 

tomical  detail  or  to  bring  out  their  features  clearly  as 
individuals.  Their  costume  is  of  a  nondescript  sort ;  the 
artist  was  not  trying  to  show  us  that  he  knew  all  about 
classic  draperies.  What  he  did  wish  to  do  was  to  put 
into  his  wood  scene  a  suggestion  of  the  impulse  to  frolic 
and  sing  which  comes  with  the  dawn  of  a  fresh  country 
morning.  This  game  of  the  nymphs  means  just  what  is 
meant  by  the  song  of  birds,  the  fluttering  of  butterflies, 
or  the  dance  of  midges  in  the  sun.  Notice  the  lightsome, 
springy  air  that  is  given  to  the  figures  by  arranging 
them  in  such  a  way  that  those  at  the  right  and  left 
extremities  of  the  group  stand  higher  up  against  the 
sky — not  against  the  ground.  This  gives  the  group 
the  general  shape  of  a  garland  or  something  swung 
rhythmically  to  and  fro.  Imagine  all  the  dancers  placed 
in  one  straight  line,  this  side  of  the  trees,  and  you  see  at 
once  how  wisely  Corot  carried  out  his  fancy.  This  curve 
is  like  the  curves  we  see  on  the  surface  of  water  where 
waves  are  lightly  swinging  to  and  fro.  It  suggests  the 
very  poetry  of  rhythmic  motion  :  what  was  it  that 
Florizel  said  to  Perdita  at  the  country  festival? 

"When  you  do  dance,  I  wish  you 
A  wave  o'  the  sea,  that  you  might  ever  do 
Nothing  but  that." 

This  swinging  curve,  so  full  of  airy  grace,  is  suggested 
again — not  too  explicitly  —  by  the  forms  of  the  trees 
and  shrubbery  around  the  left,  lower,  and  right  edges  of 
the  picture.  See  how  the  soft  masses  of  the  foliage  in 
the  left-hand  tree  are  continued  in  a  gentle  curve  by  the 
shrubbery  below,  and  how,  after  a  little  break  in  the 
lighted  foreground,  the  grasses  and  bushes  on  the  right 
side  of  the  picture  take  up  the  idea  of  the  curve,  running 


18  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

off  at  last  into  the  thin,  sunshiny  branches  of  the  extreme 
right-hand  tree.  This  repetition  of  the  curve  made  by 
the  group  of  dancers  is  so  unobtrusive  that  we  hardly  see 
it  until  we  begin  to  study  the  picture  closely,  but  it  has 
a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  effect  we  have  been  enjoying. 
Again,  does  not  the  opposite  curve  in  the  picture  —  the 
arch  made  by  the  trees  —  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  charm  of  the  whole?  Notice  that,  while  the  tree 
trunks  are  nearly  enough  vertical  to  give  an  impression 
of  energy  and  vigor,  there  are  no  absolutely  straight 
lines  in  the  whole  picture.  Everything  is  full  of  grace- 
ful curves  and  soft  touches  of  light  and  shade. 

The  very  haziness  of  the  distance  has  its  reason  in  the 
idea  of  the  picture  as  well  as  in  a  meteorological  fact. 
We  cannot  see  far  off.  We  see  only  one  sunny  spot,  but 
that  seems  to  promise  for  all  the  rest. 

"  The  year's  at  the  spring, 

And  clay's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven, 

The  hillside's  dew-pearled ; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing, 

The  snail's  on  the  thorn, 
God's  in  His  heaven, 

All's  right  with  the  world." 


s 


LANDSCAPES  19 

The  glory  of  the  sunset  is  something  that  many  and 
many  an  artist  has  tried  to  capture  and  immortalize. 

One  of  the  most  famous  picture-sunsets  is  that  of 
Turner's  1  Fighting  Temeraire.  It  takes  for  its  text  the 
towing  of  a  famous  warship,  condemned  as  unseaworthy,  to 
her  last  anchorage  after  long  and  eventful  service.  The 
name  of  the  vessel  means  The  one  that  dares.  She  was 
captured  by  the  English  from  the  French  in  the  battle  of 
the  Nile  in  1798,  and  used  in  the  British  navy  until  1838, 
when  she  was  pronounced  past  her  usefulness. 

Although  our  print  is  only  black  and  white,  the  im- 
pression received  is  one  of  gorgeous  color.  We  feel  that 
the  sky  is  ablaze  with  sunset  light,  and  that  the  waters 
reflect  the  glow  of  the  clouds  in  every  ripple.  The  im- 
portant little  steam  vessel  towing  the  warship  emphasizes 
by  contrast  with  its  own  dark  shape  and  belching  smoke 
the  vivid  hues  of  the  sky  and  the  surrounding  water. 
The  distant  shore,  behind  which  the  sun  is  about  sinking, 
is  veiled  in  a  fiery  haze  through  which  walls  and  towers 
loom  with  the  indistinctness  of  a  dream.  We  can  see  how 
the  whole  surface  of  the  broad  stream  is  alive  with  rip- 
pling color,  and  yet  our  eyes  do  not  rest  long  on  the 
water.  The  two  vessels  draw  our  gaze  to  themselves, 
and,  as  soon  as  our  glance  reaches  the  group  with  its  long 
reflection  in  the  still  water,  we  find  ourselves  involuntarily 
tracing  the  height  of  the  dark  smoke-stack,  of  the  flag- 
pole, of  the  tall,  slender,  bare  masts  of  the  old  ship,  leading 
up  once  more  into  that  wonderful  sky. 

See  how  the  bustling,  business-like  little  convoy  and 
the  dignified  battle  ship  emphasize  each  other's  character 

1  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  the  English  landscape  painter  (1775-1851).  Turner 
painted  this  same  subject  more  than  once,  and  there  are  interesting  dif- 
ferences between  his  versions  of  the  same  theme. 


20  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

by  contrast.  The  low,  broad  hull  of  the  smaller  boat  is 
heavy  and  common-place  ;  the  high  set  of  the  Timer  aire 
in  the  water  (she  is  of  old-fashioned  build,  empty  and 
viewed  from  the  water-level  besides)  gives  her  the  stately 
effect  of  one  whose  head  is  held  uplifted  with  conscious 
pride  of  birth  and  of  worth.  Yet  there  is  an  element  of 
desolation  and  sadness  mingled  with  this  pride.  We 
instinctively  feel  that  we  see  the  end  of  a  great  career  as 
well  as  the  end  of  a  day.  We  find  ourselves  almost  re- 
senting as  a  cruel  touch  of  impertinence  the  cloud  of 
black  smoke  which  the  little  convoy  so  nonchalantly  puffs 
into  the  face  of  her  queenly  superior.  "  The  old  order 
changeth,  giving  place  to  new."  The  first  war  vessel  to 
be  propelled  by  steam  was  built  almost  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later  than  the  capture  of  the  Temeraire  from  the 
French.  The  ancient  battle  ship  had  her  day  —  a  glorious 
day.     Now  it  is  all  over  ! 

The  effect  of  forward  motion  in  the  two  vessels  is  some- 
thing beautiful  to  be  enjoyed,  and,  if  we  like,  something 
interesting  to  be  studied.  The  plash  of  the  water,  churned 
into  foam  by  the  paddle-wheels  of  the  forward  boat,  and 
the  faint  wake  left  behind  the  larger  boat,  give  us  definite 
testimony  that  both  are  sweeping  slowly,  steadily  for- 
ward ;  yet  we  have  a  sense  of  their  forward  motion 
almost  without  looking  at  these  particular  details.  But 
how  are  we  aware  of  it  ?  Perhaps  the  long,  sloping 
lines,  or  rather  the  diagonal  directions  followed  by  the 
eye,  help  give  us  that  impression.  See  how  the  tops 
of  the  two  nearer  masts  of  the  Temeraire,  the  top  of  the 
flag-staff,  and  the  upper  lines  of  the  ghostly  white  sails 
in  the  distance  make  us  feel  a  diagonal  line  reaching  down 
towards  the  foreground  in  the  lower  right-hand  portion 
of  the  picture.     The  streaming  cloud  of  smoke  gives  us. 


(s 


22  HOW  TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

another  line,  leading  in  the  direction  of  the  lower  right 
corner  of  the  picture.  There  is  even  a  faint,  echo-like 
hint  of  the  same  direction  in  the  slanting  lines  of  light 
streaming  from  the  clouds  down  towards  the  water,  far  in 
the  background  beyond  the  white-sailed  boats  ;  and, 
complementing  all  this,  there  is  the  buoy  in  the  right 
foreground,  answering,  with  its  upward  slant,  all  these 
forward-reaching  lines.  Consciously  or  unconsciously, 
we  feel  the  pull  of  these  lines  towards  the  water-level  in 
the  foreground,  and  we  instinctively  translate  it  into  for- 
ward motion  in  the  vessels,  — motion  steady  and  confident, 
motion  proud  and  reluctant,  motion  slow  and  sad,  with 
the  gorgeous  sunset  flooding  the  whole  scene  and  lending 
the  spectacle  the  mournful  magnificence  of  a  military 
funeral. 

See  how  the  buoy  and  the  row-boat  and  the  white  sails, 
all  at  different  distances  from  us,  help  strengthen  the 
effect  of  breadth  in  the  water  spaces.  We  involuntarily 
measure  the  horizontal  distances  according  to  the  varia- 
tions of  these  details  in  size  and  distinctness,  and  come 
to  realize  that  it  is  a  wide  expanse  over  which  we  look. 
The  noble  old  vessel  has  a  lonely  journey  for  this,  her 
last,  with  none  grateful  enough  to  do  her  honor  as  she 
passes  to  her  end.  The  careless  city  seems  dozing  in  its 
remote  and  dream-like  haze,  unaware  of  the  passing  of  a 
vessel  that  has  brought  honor  to  the  whole  nation.  If 
the  men  in  the  little  row-boat  give  a  thought  to  the  sol- 
emn sight  in  mid  stream,  their  interest  only  emphasizes 
the  absence  and  neglect  of  the  rest,  as  a  few  scattered 
spectators  in  a  scantily  filled  audience  room  inevitably 
make  it  seem  lonelier  than  if  it  were  quite  empty.  There 
is  evidently  little  thought  among  men  about  the  fate  of 
the  worn-out  vessel;   in  a  certain  sense  there  is  a  grimly 


LANDSCAPES  23 

cynical  suggestiveness  about  the  picture's  composition. 
Yet,  when  we  look  once  more  at  that  marvellous  sky,  as 
the  artist  makes  us  look  again  and  again,  —  that  sky 
which  fills  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  whole  picture 
space,  and  into  which  all  the  lofty  vertical  lines  of  the 
vessels  lead  our  eyes  and  our  feelings,  —  as  we  look  into 
that  sky  we  realize  that  the  essential  spirit  of  the  picture, 
over  and  above  its  inherent  beauties  of  line  and  color 
and  light  and  dark,  is  not  cynical  after  all.  The  feeling 
comes  to  us  that  the  painter,  besides  delighting  our  eyes, 
has  said  here  in  his  chosen  language  of  form  and  color 
something  akin  to  what  his  great  countryman  once  said 
in  verse,  of  the  ultimate  measure  of  all  earthly  great- 
ness :  — 

"  Fame  is  no  plant  that  grows  on  mortal  soil, 
Nor  in  the  glistering  foil 
Set  off  to  the  world,  nor  in  broad  rumor  lies, 
But  lives  and  spreads  aloft  by  those  pure  eyes, 
And  perfect  witness  of  all-judging  Jove. 
As  He  pronounces  lastly  on  each  deed, 
Of  so  much  fame  in  heaven  expect  thy  meed." 

And,  again,  this  picture  of  the  old  ship,  led  away  to  a 
prosaic  and  humiliating  end,  reminds  us  of  Holmes'  "  Old 
Ironsides,"  written  when  it  was  proposed  to  allot  a  like 
ignoble  fate  to  the  American  frigate   Constitution :  — 

"  Aye,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down ! 

Long  has  it  waved  on  high, 
And  many  an  eye  has  danced  to  see 

That  banner  in  the  sky ; 
Beneath  it  rung  the  battle  shout, 

And  burst  the  cannon's  roar,  — 
The  meteor  of  the  ocean  air 

Shall  sweep  the  clouds  no  more. 


24  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

"Her  deck,  once  red  with  heroes'  blood, 

Where  knelt  the  vanquished  foe, 
When  winds  were  hurrying  o'er  the  flood, 

And  waves  were  white  below, 
No  more  shall  feel  the  victor's  tread, 

Or  know  the  conquered  knee ; 
The  harpies  of  the  shore  shall  pluck 

The  eagle  of  the  sea ! 

"  Oh,  better  that  her  shattered  hulk 

Should  sink  beneath  the  wave  ; 
Her  thunders  shook  the  mighty  deep, 

And  there  should  be  her  grave. 
Nail  to  the  mast  her  holy  flag, 

Set  every  threadbare  sail, 
And  give  her  to  the  god  of  storms, 

The  lightning  and  the  gale !  " 


CHAPTER   III 

BUILDINGS   AND   STREET   SCENES 

\  RCHITECTURE  is  in  itself  a  field  for  endless  study 
-*-*-  by  those  who  have  the  taste  and  the  opportunity 
for  systematic  research  ;  but  even  a  little  glimpse  into 
the  subject,  such  as  a  magazine  article  may  give,  is  always 
enjoyable.  When  we  have  well-drawn  illustrations  to 
look  at,  their  interest  is  two-sided.  We  are  interested 
in  the  subject  for  its  own  sake,  and  also  in  the  artist's 
way  of  showing  us  the  subject. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  glimpse  of  an  ancient  temple, 
shown  on  page  27.1  If  we  came  across  such  a  picture  in 
a  magazine  or  a  volume  of  travels,  the  context  would 
naturally  give  us  more  or  less  information  about  this 
particular  spot,  but,  even  in  the  absence  of  all  text,  the 
picture  has  a  great  deal  for  us.  Brief  notes  about  the 
building  in  question  are  given  at  the  end  of  this  chapter 
for  those  who  may  like  to  refer  to  them  later.2  Let  us, 
for  the  moment,  take  the  picture  just  as  it  stands  and 
ask  it  to  speak  for  itself. 

What  about  the  height  of  the  building,  —  is  it  an 
ordinary  row  of  columns  such  as  might  be  found  in  a 
church,  or  something  more  than  that  ?  (Compare  the 
men's  stature  with  the  height  of  the  columns.)     Can  we 

1  This  is  from  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  by  H.  B.  Warren,  an  American 
artist  who  has  earned  distinction  and  fame  in  illustrative  work. 

2  See  page  40. 

25 


26  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

roughly  estimate  the  diameters  of  the  columns,  by  ref- 
erence to  the  same  convenient  measurement  ?  What  ap- 
pears to  be  the  material  used  ?  Are  the  columns  whole 
or  built  up  in  sections  ?  How  are  they  ornamented  ? 
Notice  the  flower-like  outward  curve  of  the  capitals, 
where  the  columns  take  the  weight  of  the  roof  above. 
Notice,  too,  the  shape  of  the  roof,  arched,  slanting,  or 
flat.  What  do  the  broken  wall  and  leaning  pillar  in 
the  distance  suggest  as  to  the  age  of  these  buildings  ? 
Does  the  picture  give  us  any  suggestion  as  to  the  climate 
and  atmospheric  conditions  of  the  region  ?  (Notice  the 
sharpness  and  intensity  of  the  shadows  where  they  come 
in  contrast  with  the  full  light.  See  the  costumes  of  the 
two  sitting  figures  ;  they  are  but  slightly  indicated,  for 
the  artist  did  not  intend  to  make  them  conspicuous  at 
the  first  glance  ;  but  we  can  easily  make  out  something 
of  the  general  character  of  the  clothing,  especially  that 
of  the  head.) 

Now  let  us  withdraw  a  little  from  these  details  and 
look  at  the  picture  as  a  whole.  Hold  the  page  off  at 
arm's  length,  or,  better  still,  set  the  open  book  at  a  little 
distance  and  look  at  the  illustration  through  a  telescope- 
shaped  tube  an  inch  or  two  in  diameter,  made  by  rolling 
up  a  card  or  a  sheet  of  note  paper.  This  cuts  off  irrele- 
vant surroundings  and  brings  out  the  general  effect  of 
the  drawing  in  a  delightful  way.  It  brings  out  the  lofty 
proportions  of  the  massive  columns,  the  deep  shadow  in 
which  they  are  enfolded  (deep  and  yet  at  the  same  time 
luminous  shadow,  for  even  the  deepest  darks  are  full  of 
reflected  light,  showing  us  the  surface  of  the  stones), 
and  it  gives  added  emphasis  to  the  glare  of  light  beyond, 
where  we  can  feel  the  hot  sunshine  beating  fiercely  down. 
And  see,  by  the  way,  how  exquisitely  the  shadow  on  the 


A  GLIMPSE   AT    KARNAK. —Warren. 


28  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

ceiling  is  modified  by  lights  reflected  from  below.  The 
deep  dusk  of  the  ceiling  in  among  the  pillars  changes 
almost  imperceptibly  as  our  glance  travels  towards  the 
middle  portion  just  over  the  open  aisle,  being  more  and 
more  lighted  up  by  reflections  from  the  cylindric  sides 
of  the  pillars  and  possibly  in  part  from  the  ground. 

When  we  come  to  think  about  the  artist's  personal 
responsibility  for  these  effects,  —  effects  produced  merely 
by  the  right  sort  of  black  marks  on  a  scrap  of  white 
paper,  —  we  realize  that  it  took  a  clever  man  to  do  what 
has  been  done  here.  As  we  very  well  know,  the  empha- 
sis and  repetition  of  vertical  lines  in  a  picture  give  us 
a  feeling  of  loftiness  and  dignity.  By  making  the  dark 
mass  of  the  roof  also  a  strongly  conspicuous  part  of  the 
drawing  as  a  whole,  the  artist  inevitably  attracts  the  eye 
up,  up,  up  the  tall  columns,  and,  thus  forcing  us  to  trace 
their  whole  height,  emphasizes  the  impression  of  their 
vastness  and  grandeur.  We  actually  cannot  help  feeling 
the  impression  of  loftiness  which  he  wanted  to  give  us. 
And  note,  also,  how  much  more  impressive  he  made  his 
sketch  by  showing  us  two  rows  of  columns  instead  of 
one.  (Cover  up  either  row  and  look  at  its  fellow  alone.) 
Xotice  also  how  he  secured  the  advantage  of  a  V-shaped 
composition  while  avoiding  its  disadvantages.  The  geo- 
metric rigidity  of  the  symmetrical  V,  so  strongly  sug- 
gested in  the  outlines  of  the  successively  shorter  {i.e. 
more  distant)  columns,  gives  us  an  impression  of  strict 
formality,  almost  of  ceremonial  stateliness.  It  reenforces 
our  already  existing  sense  that  this  building  must  have 
been  a  serious  affair,  the  scene  of  gravely  considered  and 
orderly  proceedings.  Still,  our  sense  of  the  beautiful 
would  make  us  object  to  a  picture  having  a  complete 
triangle  of  light,  apex  down,  precisely  in  the  middle  of 


BUILDINGS   AND   STEEET   SCENES  20 

the  composition,  and  the  artist,  knowing  this  even  better 
than  we  do,  avoided  the  completion  of  the  triangle.  He 
let  its  sloping"  sides  change  their  minds  and  go  wavering 
off  into  the  irregular  outlines  of  distant  ruins  away  in 
the  sunshiny  background. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  beautifully  the  artist  suc- 
ceeded in  making  those  pillars  stand  out  perfectly,  one 
beyond  another.  We  have  gray  against  gray,  where 
two  come  together,  yet  the  effect  is  that  of  perfect  sepa- 
rateness  and  round  solidity.  If  we  try  to  trace  the  how 
of  it,  we  find  the  secret  is  largely  a  matter  of  subtile 
variations  in  the  depth  of  grayness ;  but  it  takes  an 
artist's  eye  and  hand  to  see  and  show  these  variations  in 
exactly  the  right  way. 

Notice  how  the  brilliance  of  the  sunshine  on  the  left- 
hand  columns  and  on  the  ground  has  been  produced ;  it 
is  chiefly  a  matter  of  sharp  contrast  between  black  and 
white  instead  of  between  a  soft  gray  and  white,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  distant  ruins.  Of  course  the  sunshine  outside 
is  equally  brilliant,  but,  as  we  realize  when  we  stop  to 
think,  the  free  reflection  of  this  strong  light  back  and 
forth  from  so  many  strongly  lighted  surfaces  must  neces- 
sarily make  any  shadow  cast  there  less  dark  in  effect  than 
it  would  be  in  among  these  dusky,  giant  columns. 


* 


30  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Very  different  in  its  general  air  and  effect  is  this  bit 
of  New  York  City  from  Hassam's  brush.1  The  towering 
masses  of  the  large  buildings  in  the  background  take  the 
eye  at  the  first  glance  ;  then  we  become  tangled  in  that 
confused,  confusing  swarm  of  carriages  and  people,  and 
our  main  impression  is  likely  to  be  one  of  shifting,  kaleido- 
scopic motion.  The  twinkling  mixture  of  light  and  dark 
spaces  in  the  carriages  and  costumes,  and  the  criss-cross 
directions  of  the  lines  made  by  them  as  they  are  arranged 
here  in  the  lower  part  of  the  picture,  give  us  a  surprisingly 
vivid  feeling  of  the  restless  stir  of  the  crowds  of  a  city 
street,  with  their  eddies  and  cross-currents  and  changing 
tides. 

The  artist's  choice  of  a  standpoint  from  which  the 
general  trend  of  the  streets  is  seen  as  an  oblique  line 
across  the  picture  adds  to  the  effect  of  motion,  and  im- 
mensely increases  the  interest  of  the  picture  as  a  whole. 
It  is  not  easy  to  explain  to  ourselves  just  why  this  is  so  ; 
but,  if  we  imagine  the  two  curbstones  as  running  ex- 
actly horizontal  and  parallel  across  the  lower  edge  of  the 
picture,  we  feel  at  once  a  loss  in  its  spirit.  Such  a  street 
would  be  much  less  attractive  to  the  imaofination.  But 
this  one,  sweeping  by  with  a  sort  of  magnificent  haste, 
and  losing  itself  in  a  hazy  prospect  of  distant  roof  lines, 
seems  to  entice  us  on  with  vague,  fascinating  promises  of 
interesting  things  yet  to  see. 

And  was  not  the  artist  also  wise  to  show  us  the  tall 
masses  of  those  "  sky-scrapers "  with  their  loftiness  set 

1  Chikle  Hassam,  one  of  the  prominent  American  artists  of  the  present 
clay.  He  has  exhibited  many  pictures  of  city  streets,  wherein  he  seems 
to  have  a  special  gift  for  discovering  beautiful  effects  of  line  and  color. 
This  illustration,  giving  a  glimpse  across  Madison  Square  at  the  crossing 
of  Broadway  and  Fifth  Avenue,  originally  appeared  in  the  Century 
Magazine  and  is  reprinted  here  by  courtesy  of  the  Century  Company. 


w 

M 
as 

o 

to 


J      1      E  '''-'■■'&*m^i*-'    ■ 


32  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

off  by  the  soft,  bower-like  masses  of  the  trees  in  the 
square,  rather  than  by  neighboring  buildings  of  mod- 
erate height?  For,  admirable  as  one  of  these  tall  build- 
ings may  be  in  its  own  way,  there  is  always  something 
grotesque  and  disagreeable  about  its  contrast  with  the 
modest  four-story  structure  of  an  earlier  generation, 
which  may  unfortunately  stand  beside  it.  We  are  in- 
evitably reminded  of  a  giant  on  the  one  hand  or  a 
dwarf  on  the  other  —  possibly  both ;  and  giants  and 
dwarfs,  set  up  permanently  in  iron  and  stone  along  one's 
daily  path,  are  ugly  things  to  look  at.  But  buildings 
and.  trees  have  no  such  dangerous  resemblances.  We 
instinctively  and  quite  unconsciously  measure  the  trees 
by  the  height  of  the  people  walking  near,  and  think  of 
them  as  tall  and  stately,  no  recent  graduates  from  a 
nurseryman's  grounds ;  then,  seeing  how  far  above  the 
tree-tops  the  walls  of  these  two  great  buildings  rise,  we 
get  an  impression  of  stateliness  unmixed  with  regretful 
comparisons.  That  huge  apartment  house  is  really  a 
marvel  of  modern  city  architecture,  and  we  see  it  here 
in  its  most  poetic  aspect.1  Seen  at  this  distance  there 
is  nothing  mean  or  ugly  about  its  commonplaces.  Even 
the  ventilators  take  an  air  of  dignity,  lifting  the  pile 
higher  still  into  the  open  sky. 

Notice  how  beautiful  the  sky  line  is,  thanks  to  the 
trees  that  help  fill  in  the  space  between  the  buildings  at 
the  left  and  right  sides  in  the  background.     We  have  a 

1  The  famous  French  critic,  M.  Brunetiere,  is  credited  with  a  very 
suggestive  comment  on  tall  buildings  of  this  sort,  noting  the  opportunity 
they  offer  for  quiet,  serious  thinking,  even  in  the  midst  of  a  noisy  city. 
Those  tower-like  structures  certainly  do  seem  to  promise  a  host  of  de- 
lightful things,  —  remoteness  from  the  dirt  and  noise  of  the  streets,  clear 
air,  unbroken  breezes,  an  outlook  far,  far  around  over  the  common  earth, 
embracing  an  almost  limitless  space  of  open  sky,  with  its  changing  clouds 
and  sunshine. 


BUILDINGS   AND   STREET   SCENES  33 

glimpse  of  the  intervening  roofs  through  the  foliage,  and 
can  readily  see  how  much  pleasanter  the  picture  is  now 
than  it  would  have  been  if  the  artist  had  shown  ns  all  the 
roofs  in  sequence,  making  an  outline  full  of  ugly  oblong 
openings  like  jigsaw  "  ornament."  It  is  not  often  that 
an  artist  tries  to  show  us  the  beautiful  side  of  our  com- 
monplace, American  city  streets.  Lacking  his  help,  we 
are  likely  to  suppose  that  there  is  no  beauty  in  these 
crowded  ways,  and  that  the  comment  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's 
little  maid,  "  Lor,  how  expensive  !  "  is  about  all  there  is  to 
say  regarding  them.  So,  when  a  man  like  Mr.  Hassam 
calls,  "  Wait  —  let  me  show  you  how  to  look  at  this 
crowded  thoroughfare  with  its  handful  of  trees  at  one 
side  and  its  majestic  towers  keeping  watch  overhead,"  we 
are  grateful  enough  for  a  chance  to  see  with  his  more 
appreciative  eyes. 


Though  we  may  be  surprised  at  finding  the  poetic  on 
Broadway,  we  expect  to  find  it  in  the  little  old  French 
town  where  Pennell :  went  sketching  a  dozen  years  ago. 
The  quaint  stone  houses,  with  their  steep  roofs  and  tower- 
ing chimneys,  have  an  air  of  conservative  self-respect 
which  is  most  attractive.  Their  building  evidently  dates 
back  to  the  times  when  artisans  and  artists  were  less 
separated  than  now  —  when  men  with  taste  and  talent 
put  into  simple,  manual  labor  the  best  that  was  in  them- 
selves.    Look  at  that  corner  building  and  see  how  admir- 

1  Joseph  Pennell,  reckoned  a  master  of  pen-and-ink  illustration.  His 
work  is  often  seen  in  the  best  magazines  and  in  well-illustrated  books. 
The  drawing  on  page  35  is  reprinted  from  P.  G.  Hamerton's  delightful 
volume  on  The  Saone,  by  permission  of  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Roberts 
Bros.  The  town  of  Gray  is  in  eastern  France  at  the  head  of  navigation 
on  the  river  Saone. 


34  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

ably  its  wall  spacing  was  planned.  We  would  not  have 
the  shapes  and  placing  of  those  doors  and  windows 
changed  by  a  foot  either  way,  the  effect  is  so  good  as  it  is. 
The  arched  space  on  the  street  floor  (is  it  a  window  with 
an  entrance  door  beside  it?)  is  a  hundred  times  pleas- 
anter  to  look  at  than  it  would  be  if  divided  exactly  in  the 
middle.  And  notice  that  strong,  graceful  scroll  which 
holds  the  street-lamp  well  out  beyond  the  wall,  where  it 
can  light  both  ways  around  the  corner.  Some  workman 
put  all  his  love  for  beautiful  form  into  the  shaping  of 
that  simple  scroll.  It  was  not  turned  out  by  machinery, 
and  sold  by  the  gross,  one  hundred  and  forty-four  copies, 
all  just  alike  ! 

The  house  next  beyond  the  corner  seems  to  be  covered 
with  some  sort  of  plaster  or  stucco  ;  Mr.  Pennell's  draw- 
ing suggests  a  roughish  surface,  like  coarse  plaster.  And 
are  there  blinds  over  the  ground-floor  windows  ? 

That  coquettish  curve  of  the  street  around  to  the  right 
is  very  alluring  ;  there  is  nothing  like  a  flavor  of  conceal- 
ment to  sharpen  interest.  In  a  drawing  like  tins  we  find 
ourselves  wishing  we  could  see  just  a  little  farther  around 
the  curve.  It  is  with  such  sketches  as  with  letter-writing, 
according  to  Sam  Weller  —  the  great  art  of  it  consists  in 
making  you  wish  there  was  more  ! 

But  see  what  a  charming  bit  this  is,  just  as  it  stands, 
with  its  happy  combination  of  strong  masses  of  dark  color, 
soft  grays  in  the  rough,  stuccoed  wall  and  the  long  hori- 
zontal shadows  in  the  street,  and  full,  clear  whites  where 
the  sunshine  falls  unbroken  on  the  smoother  walls  and  the 
pavement.  The  window  and  door  spaces  are  just  irreg- 
ular enough  to  add  picturesqueness  to  the  blending  of 
dark  and  light  in  the  print.  The  picture  is  really  charm- 
ing to  look  at  when  we  take  it  from  this  point  of  view, 


STREET   IN   GRAY.  —  Pexnell. 


3(3  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

even  -without  any  special  thought  of  the  locality  or  its 
romantic  suggestions.  Does  not  the  figure  of  the  shirt- 
sleeved  citizen,  meditating  in  the  sun,  really  add  a  great 
deal  to  the  general  effect,  giving,  as  it  does,  a  strong, 
spirited  accent  of  dark  color  in  the  part  of  the  picture 
where  accent  would  otherwise  be  lacking,  and  where  the 
picture  might  in  his  absence  seem  just  a  little  weak  and 
faded  ? 

As  we  study  the  spaces  of  distinctly  dark  color  in  the 
roofs  and  elsewhere,  we  gradually  see,  what  was  perhaps 
not  evident  at  first  glance,  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
variation  in  the  depth  of  their  color.  For  instance,  in  the 
house  just  at  the  left  of  the  corner  building,  the  shadow 
cast  upon  the  roof  by  the  neighboring  roof  makes  one 
triangular  half  of  it  much  deeper  in  color  than  the  rest. 
The  shadows  under  the  eaves  of  the  corner  house  are 
much  deeper  than  the  roof  above.  In  the  picturesque, 
unevenly  divided  arch  down  below,  the  narrow  portion 
gives  us  a  deeper  dark  than  the  wide  portion.  These 
delicate  transitions  of  color  make  for  the  beauty  of  the 
Avhole,  somewhat  as  the  delicate  veinings  and  half-tints 
of  color  in  a  flower's  petals  make  for  the  beauty  of  the 
whole  flower. 


The  glimpse  in  Siena,  on  page  39,  is  from  a  sketch  by 
Charles  Herbert  Woodbury.1  It  takes  us  at  once  into 
story-book-land.     These  old  buildings,  shouldering  each 

1  One  of  the  younger  American  artists  who  has  already  earned  recogni- 
tion both  here  and  abroad.  This  sketch  is  reproduced  with  his  permis- 
sion from  a  portfolio  of  lithographed  facsimiles  of  his  pencil  drawings, 
published  by  L.  Prang  &  Co.  Reproduction  in  "half-tone  "  cannot  show 
perfectly  the  pencil  strokes  of  the  artist  just  as  he  made  them,  or  reflect 
all  their  fine  effects  ;  still  we  have  here  an  approximation  to  the  original 
sufficiently  close  to  be  well  worth  examining. 


iiUILDlXGS   AND   STREET    SCENES  37 

other  unceremoniously  like  people  in  u  crowd,  and 
still  more  like  people  in  ;i  crowd  — standing  on  tiptoe  to 
peer  over  each  other's  shoulders,  are  just  what  we  want 
to  see  in  a  little,  old  Italian  city  whose  history  runs  back 
into  the  days  of  Augustus  Caesar.  Just  such  streets  as 
this  there  should  naturally  be  in  a  town  with  a  record  of 
"battles,  sieges,  fortunes"  all  through  the  Middle  Ages,  a 
town  where  picturesque  villains  hatched  plots  and  pictu- 
resque heroes  planned  victories,  while  priests  in  gorgeous 
array  prayed  for  passing  souls. 

Besides  the  romance  which  is  suggested  to  the  imagina- 
tion by  the  balconies,  the  shuttered  windows,  the  dark 
passageway,  and  the  high  garden  walls,  the  very  shapes 
of  the  buildings  and  the  play  of  lights  and  shadows  over 
roofs,  walls,  and  foliage  are  a  delight  to  the  eye.  Tne 
contrast  between  the  streaked  brick  wall  of  the  arch  and 
the  deep  gloom  of  that  passageway  is  beautiful  to  look 
at.  The  contrast  between  the  full  glare  of  light  on  the 
face  of  that  tall  building  at  the  left  and  the  warm  shadows 
on  its  weather-beaten  side  is  beautiful  in  itself,  besides 
giving  us  a  comfortable  sense  of  the  caressing  sunshine. 
The  recessed  door  in  the  garden  wall,  on  which  the  sun- 
light falls  to  be  reflected  back  from  the  worn  panels,  must 
have  some  individual  color  different  from  that  of  the  wall  ; 
the  dark  effect  of  the  pencil  there  gives  us  the  impression 
of  color.  (Can  it  be  a  dull  red  or  green,  or  some  such 
hue?)  It  cannot  be  shadow  alone,  its  tone  is  so  different 
from  the  shadow  that  marks  the  depth  of  the  recess  in  the 
wall.  And  the  irregular,  twinkling  masses  of  dark  and 
light  in  the  garden  foliage  give  us  a  dazzling  effect  of 
mingled  color  and  reflected  sunshine,  such  as  we  have 
many  a  time  sighed  over  in  admiration  by  some  Yankee 
roadside. 


38  HOW    TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

A  sketch  like  this  can  give  us  a  multitude  of  "  points  " 
about  looking  at  nature.  For  one  thing,  look  above  and 
a  little  to  the  right  of  the  recessed  doorway  in  the  fore- 
ground and  see  how  the  slightly  projecting  coping  along 
the  upper  edge  of  the  wall  is  indicated.  We  have  merely 
a  few  slight  horizontal  dashes  of  dark,  marking  the  shadow 
cast  by  this  projecting  edge  on  the  nearly  vertical  surface 
below,  —  only  a  few  streaks  of  shadow,  absolutely  not  a 
mark  besides, —  but  this  alone  tells  us  that  the  narrow 
space  above  it  must  project  a  little  to  cast  such  a  shadow. 
Ten  to  one,  unless  we  have  tried  to  do  a  little  pencil 
sketching  ourselves,  we  never  noticed  the  ribbon  of 
shadow  lying  under  such  a  line  of  stone  or  woodwork 
exposed  to  the  sun  from  above.  Then  look  farther  along 
this  same  wall  to  the  place  where  there  is  an  opening  into 
an  alley  ;  notice  that  the  termination  of  the  wall  this  side 
of  the  alley  is  not  marked  by  any  hard  outline,  in  fact,  it 
has  no  outline  at  all.  It  simply  stops,  and  beyond  it  we 
have  the  shadowed  side  of  the  alley.  This  may  seem  to 
some  of  us  an  odd  fashion  of  drawing  ;  but  if  we  look  at  a 
similar  edge  of  wall  with  strong  sunlight  falling  on  it,  we 
shall  often  find  that  we  really  do  not  see  any  sharply 
defined  outline.  What  we  do  see  is  such  an  effect  as  the 
artist  gives  us  here.  A  similar  appearance  can  be  studied 
in  the  edge  of  the  wall  at  the  farther  side  of  the  alley  and 
in  the  vertical  edges  of  the  buildings  in  the  left-hand  half 
of  the  picture.  Notice  particularly  the  farther  edge  of 
the  tall  building  just  above  the  alleyway.  In  the  dazzling 
light  we  see  no  sharp  edges,  but  only  the  ending  of  one 
kind  of  colored  space,  and  the  beginning  of  another  kind 
of  colored  space,  beyond  it. 

Artists  differ  greatly  in  the  kind  as  well  as  the  amount 
of  suggestiveness  which  they  put  into  pencil  sketches  like 


CO 

H 

w 

co 


40  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

this.  Mr.  Woodbury,  as  we  have  already  seen,  actually 
shows  us  a  good  deal  of  color,  using  merely  a  black  pencil 
on  white  paper.  Look  at  that  streak  of  sunshine  stream- 
ing in  from  between  those  buildings  at  the  right,  widen- 
ing warm  across  the  bulging  pavement,  and  spreading 
into  a  broad  splash  on  the  weather-stained  garden  wall 
at  the  opposite  side  of  the  roadway.  It  is  merely  a  scrap 
of  perfectly  white  paper  where  the  artist  refrained  from 
doing  anything  whatsoever.  He  simply  arranged  the 
surrounding  spaces  of  shade  and  shadow  in  the  best  way, 
and  contrast  did  the  rest. 

Notice  also,  incidentally,  how  the  proximity  of  this 
light  streak  and  the  dark  interior  of  the  arched  passage 
intensifies  both  effects.  The  sunshine  seems  all  the 
brighter  and  the  dusk  all  the  darker  for  their  sharp  con- 
trast. In  a  somewhat  similar  fashion  the  contrast  between 
the  strongly  lighted  house  walls  and  the  dark  interior 
spaces  behind  the  open  windows  adds  to  the  effect  of 
brilliance  in  this  southern  sunshine. 


The  illustration  by  Mr.  Warren  on  page  27  shows  a  portion  of  an  ancient 
Egyptian  temple  at  Karnak.  Although  only  a  part  of  the  whole  temple, 
this  pillared  hall  is  three  hundred  forty  feet  long  and  one  hundred  seventy 
feet  wide  ;  it  included  one  hundred  sixty-four  great  stone  columns.  Those 
shown  in  the  illustration  are  sixty  feet  high  and  thirty  feet  in  circumfer- 
ence. The  beginning  of  the  building  dates  away  back  to  2700  B.C.,  but 
certain  parts  of  it  were  added  about  970  b.c.  The  historic  perspective 
almost  takes  one's  breath  away. 

The  flower-shaped  capitals  of  the  columns  might  be  made  a  text  for 
volumes  about  ancient  Egypt  and  its  people.  Artists  and  archaeologists 
see  in  them  a  symbolic  representation  of  the  opening  blossom  of  the 
lotus  (a  flower  strongly  resembling  our  common  water  lily)  which  grows 
in  the  waters  of  the  Nile.  Egypt,  being  practically  a  rainless  country, 
has  been  from  time  immemorial  dependent  on  the  annual  freshets  of  the 
Nile  to  overflow  the  river  valley,  wetting  down  the  sun-baked  fields  and 
fertilizing  them  with  layers  of  fresh  mud.      Indeed,  the  dependence  of 


BUILDINGS    AM)   STREET  SCENES  41 

tlic  whole  country  on  this  overflow  of  the  river  has  been  so  absolute,  and 
the  service  of  the  river  so  unfailing,  that  it  can  hardly  seem  strange  the 
ancient  Egyptians  worshipped  as  a  conscious,  powerful  personality  the 
stream  which  came  from  nobody-knew-where  and  brought  help  every 
year  just,  in  time  tor  the  raising  of  magnificent  harvests.  The  loins, 
blooming  in  the  midst  of  the  beneficent  waters  and  associated  with  their 
blessing,  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  increasing  life,  of  resurrec- 
tion, of  immortality.  The  patient  carving  of  the  enormous  stone  blocks 
of  the  temple  pillars  into  the  lotus  form  takes  a  meaning  at  once  pathetic 
and  sublime  when  we  think  of  the  millions  of  dead-and-gone  people,  so 
like  us  and  yet  so  unlike  us,  who  have  stood  in  the  shadows  of  this  silent 
temple. 


CHAPTER    IV 

PICTURES  THAT   TELL   A    STORY 

~\0  we  like  a  picture  "with  a  story"?  Very  well, 
—  here  it  is.  Only  we  must  supply  the  plot  of 
the  story  for  ourselves. 

The  arched  bridge  over  the  canal  and  the  prow  of  a 
gondola  just  coming  in  sight  tell  us  at  once  that  we  are 
in  Venice.  The  artist 1  called  his  picture  Curiosity,  and 
no  doubt  smiled  to  himself  over  the  joke  involved  in 
the  name  ;  for,  if  the  people  on  the  stairs  are  curious 
to  see  what  is  coming,  we  who  are  outside  are  devoured 
by  curiosity  to  know  at  what  they  are  all  gazing  so  in- 
tently. There  is  a  tantalizing  quality  about  the  picture, 
akin  to  that  of  Mr.  Stockton's  famous  tale  about  The 
Lady  or  the  Tiger.  "  Well,  which  was  it  ?  "  says  the 
novelist  quizzically,  leaving  the  burden  of  his  tale  on 
our  shoulders.  And  "  What  is  it  these  Venetian  folks 
are  gazing  at  ? "  queries  the  painter,  giving  us  just  a 
scrap  of  one  approaching  boat,  and  then  laying  aside  his 
brushes. 

What  can  it  be  to  interest  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men  and  women,  as  apparently  it  does?  Every  soul 
except  the  chubby  baby  in  his  pretty  sister's  arms  feels 
the  importance  of  the  occasion,  and  the  different  kinds 
of  people  are  so  cleverly  sketched  we  feel  acquainted 
with  every  one.      Would  that  somebody  of  the  company 

1  Pasini,  an  Italian  painter  of  the  present  generation. 

42 


CURIOSITY.  —  Pasihi. 


44  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

would  vouchsafe  a  word  of  explanation  !  The  urchin 
shouting  and  beckoning  to  a  distant  comrade  does  not 
enlighten  us  much,  fur  small  boys   are    alike    the  world 

over : — 

"  A  wedding  or  a  festival, 
A  mourning  or  a  funeral," 

are  all  delightful  pageants  to  them.  But  will  not  the 
sober,  middle-aged  workman  near  by  help  us  out,  or  per- 
haps the  handsome  youth  with  the  dark  curly  hair  and 
the  open  shirt  collar  ?  Is  a  gay  wedding  party  coining 
down  the  canal  ?  Is  it  some  procession  of  church  digni- 
taries on  their  way  to  a  special  service  at  one  of  the  old 
Venetian  shrines  ?  Is  it  a  group  of  those  queer  American 
tourists,  armed  with  guidebooks  and  umbrellas,  taking  a 
first  gondola  ride  and  chattering  their  barbarous  language 
in  the  unabashed  manner  of  American  citizens  ?  What 
is  it? 

Whoever  is  approaching  is  being  studied  by  the  shrewd 
old  fellow  in  the  rough  cap,  who  stands  a  little  farther 
up  the  staircase,  beside  that  shrinking,  slatternly  matron 
in  the  plaid  shawl.  The  man  has  an  air  of  having  seen 
plenty  of  just  such  sights  before,  and  knowing  how  much 
they  are  worth.  Just  see  the  air  of  wise  reserve  with 
which  he  stands  there,  by  no  means  condescending  to 
lean  out  over  the  parapet  in  the  eager  fashion  of  his 
neighbors.  If  we  had  but  a  chance  to  ask  him  for  in- 
formation, we  should  get  not  only  the  facts  in  the  case, 
but  some  homely,  sententious  comments  thereon,  without 
extra  charge. 

The  girl  next  beyond  is  absorbed,  heart  and  soul,  in 
the  spectacle.  But  what  about  her  companion  with  the 
heavy  hair  and  downcast  eyes,  who  lays  one  pretty  white 
hand  on  the  first  girl's  shoulder  ?     That  young  woman 


PICTURES  THAT  TELL   A   STOKY  45 

has  a  story.  Can  it  be  a  wedding  procession  approach- 
ing, and  had  she  hoped  to  be  in  the  bride's  place?  The 
saucy  girl  at  her  elbow,  who  deliberately  turns  to  stare 
at  her,  may  be  looking,  with  the  calm  cruelty  of  pre- 
cocious childhood,  to  see  how  she  takes  the  disappoint- 
ment. Or,  possibly,  this  little  side  scene  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  procession  at  all.  There  may  be  a  quarrel 
between  the  families  represented  by  the  white-handed 
young  person  and  the  saucy  girl,  and  those  discreetly 
downcast  lids  may  be  meant  only  to  "  cut "  the  imperti- 
nent damsel.  That  is,  unless  the  old  priest  is  the  cause 
of  the  serious  face  and  the  down-drooping  lashes.  Has 
she  some  reason  for  wishing  that  the  severe  father  shall 
not  see  her  here,  and  is  she  overdoing,  just  a  little,  her 
pretence  that  she  does  not  know  he  is  near  ?  Some 
dramatic  intention  or  other  is  hidden  behind  that  hand- 
some, heavy  face  of  hers,  we  feel  sure. 

The  boy  in  the  white  shirt,  just  beyond  the  dignified 
priest,  has  probably  very  few  intentions  in  life  other  than 
to  have  a  good  time  as  he  goes  along.  His  happy-go- 
lucky  type  we  all  know  —  and  sometimes  envy.  Envy? 
No  ;  if  we  were  going  to  envy  anybody,  should  it  not 
rather  be  the  buxom  girl  who  stands  on  the  next  higher 
step,  one  hand  on  her  hip,  with  that  smile  of  good-nat- 
ured, "superior"  satisfaction  on  her  round  face?  If  it 
is  a  wedding  procession  drawing  near,  here  is  one  girl 
who  has  no  jealousy  of  the  bride --not  she!  This  girl 
knows  for  a  certainty  that  her  own  sweetheart  is  hand- 
somer than  the  bridegroom  of  to-day,  and  that  her  own 
wedding  gown  will  be  even  more  becoming  than  the 
finery  in  the  approaching  gondola.  She  can  well  afford 
to  patronize  the  procession  with  an  approving  smile. 

And  what  of  the  substantial  citizen  at  the  top  of  the 


46  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

stairs,  his  head  towering  against  the  sky  ?  And  what  of 
the  hooded  figure  at  his  elbow,  and  the  crowd  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  bridge  ?  Have  Ave  been  all  wrong  in 
our  surmises  ?  Is  the  sight  they  flock  to  see  a  company 
of  soldiers,  starting  for  the  wars  ?  —  or  a  criminal  being 
haled  to  prison? — or,  maybe,  the  infant  heir  of  an  old 
name,  borne  to  his  christening  by  a  gay  company  of  sis- 
ters and  cousins  and  aunts,  godfathers  and  godmothers, 
all  in  their  best  clothes  ? 

And  all  this  time,  that  problematic  gondola  in  the 
corner  of  the  picture  has  not  advanced  an  inch. 

See  how  gracefully  the  artist  managed  to  avoid  an  ex- 
actly diagonal  division  of  his  picture  space  by  introdu- 
cing that  elbow  in  the  parapet  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway, 
where  the  young  girl  stands  with  the  baby.  (By  the 
way,  how  clevei;  it  was  to  put  the  plump,  large-eyed 
morsel  of  humanity  there  in  the  foreground,  with  his 
solemn,  absent-minded  gaze  quite  away  from  the  show, 
emphasizing,  by  the  contrast  with  his  cheerful,  vague 
indifference,  the  sharply  focussed  interest  of  all  the  rest.) 
And  see  how  the  painter  utilized  the  open  space  at  the 
top  of  the  stairway,  beyond  the  old  priest,  giving  us  two 
more  girls  in  quaint,  picturesque  costume,  in  attitudes 
that  make  so  pleasant  a  variety  from  the  poses  of  their 
neighbors,  though  they  fit  naturally  enough  into  the  idea 
of  the  general  situation.  The  girl  who  stoops  with  her 
hand  on  the  bucket,  the  lines  of  her  body  all  curving  the 
other  way  from  the  lines  of  the  people  near  the  parapet, 
makes  the  picture,  as  a  whole,  much  pleasanter  to  look  at. 
Compare  the  outline,  Figure  2,  on  page  149,  where  the 
lines  curving  to  the  left  balance  those  curving  to  the 
right.  In  arranging  a  bouquet  of  curving  flower  or  foliage 
sprays,  we  naturally  like  to  have  some  unobtrusive  effect 


PICTURES    THAT  TELL  A    STORY  47 

of  this  sort ;  it  gives  the  eye  more  pleasure  than  would  be 
afforded  if  the  lines  curved  all  one  way.  This  artist  evi- 
dently has  an  eye  for  beauty  of  line  in  composition  as  well 
as  interest  in  human  nature  and  a  sense  of  humor. 

He  has,  too,  feeling-  for  beauty  in  the  combination  of 
light  and  dark  spaces.  Though  these  are  mingled  in 
such  a  way  that  the  changes  from  light  to  dark  have  the 
effect  of  shifting  change  (almost  of  what  we  call  "  twin- 
kling" in  a  candle  flame  or  a  star),  making  us  feel  the  stir 
of  life  in  the  scene,  there  is  nothing  staring  or  harsh  in 
the  contrasts.  The  spots  and  streaks  and  gleams  of  light 
color  seem  to  lead  easily  and  naturally  towards  the  larger 
light  space  of  the  open  sky  at  the  top  of  the  picture,  and 
down  to  the  strong,  conspicuous  light  masses  of  the  broad 
stone  coping  in  the  foreground,  reflecting  in  its  turn  the 
light  of  the  overarching  heavens. 


During  the  Franco-Prussian  War  many  clever  young 
artists  were  enrolled  in  the  armies  of  both  nations. 
Detaille1  was  one  of  the  Frenchmen  who  made  conspicu- 
ous use  of  his  talents  in  this  connection,  studying  the 
dramatic  aspects  of  war,  and  portraying  these  with  much 
the  same  sort  of  spirit  and  dash  that  other  men  put  into 
the  writing  of  short  stories.  The  charm  of  a  picture 
which  thus  tells  a  story  is  likely  to  be  evanescent  if  the 
picture  does  nothing  more  than  tell  a  story,  but  when 
such  a  picture  is  well  done,  it  is  sure  to  be  attractive 
in  its  own  way. 

Detaille  called  this  L'Ahrte,  The  Alarm.  The  horse- 
man has  evidently  brought  serious  news.     The  horse  is 

1  Jean  Baptiste  Edouard  Detaille,  a  Parisian,  born  in  1848,  well  known 
for  his  military  pictures. 


48  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

panting  and  steaming  from  the  haste  of  his  gallop.  The 
attitudes  of  the  officers  plainly  show  how  important  they 
consider  the  message.  Notice  the  intentness  of  look  on 
both  sides  —  that  of  the  man  on  horseback  and  of  those 
on  foot  ;  see  how  cleverly  the  artist  has  tilted  all  four 
heads  at  such  angles  as  to  direct  the  men's  gaze  at  each 
other,  though  on  very  different  levels.  In  one  sense  this 
is  a  trifle.  We  say,  "  Of  course  they  ought  to  be  looking 
at  each  other. "  True.  But  let  us  try  to  draw  a  spirited 
group  where  people  are  on  different  levels,  and  we  soon 
find  it  is  far  from  being  a  trifling  and  easy  matter  to 
make  our  people  look  each  other  straight  in  the  eyes. 

See  how  wet  and  sloppy  the  ground  is  under  the  new- 
fallen  snow.  The  blackness  of  the  footprints  betrays 
that,  for  the  overcast  sun  could  cause  no  shadow  effects  so 
black.  The  air  must  be  raw  and  chilly  ;  if  we  cpuestion 
the  men,  more  than  one  is  ready  to  testify  on  that  point. 
Collars  are  turned  up,  shoulders  shrugged  together ; 
cold  and  dampness  are  felt  in  shivering  combination. 

Nearsighted  people  have  so  many  disadvantages  in  life, 
it  is  a  pity  for  them  to  miss  any  of  the  small  pleasures 
which  might  be  theirs  as  compensation.  To  such  readers 
it  is  suggested  that  they  take  off  their  glasses  and  walk 
into  this  picture  boldly.  Bring  the  page  up  near  enough 
to  see  the  foreground  with  perfect  distinctness  without 
glasses,  and  to  cut  off  from  view  everything  outside  this 
one  page.  Behold  !  The  spectator  actually  seems,  him- 
self, to  be  standing  in  this  soggy  snow,  staring  up  at  the 
man  on  horseback,  and  shivering  while  he  stares.  The 
village  street  stretches  away  before  him,  losing  itself 
in  snowy  haze,  and  the  waiting  soldiers,  their  bodies  and 
guns  at  varying  angles  with  the  ground,  actually  give 
the   impression  of   shifting,  kaleidoscopic  motion   in   the 


THE   ALARM.  — Detaille. 


50  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

restless  individuals.  We  probably  get  this  impression 
from  having  to  adjust  our  eye  to  tirst  one  slant  of  line  and 
then  another  and  then  another,  all  slightly  different. 

This  way  of  looking  at  the  picture  is,  it  is  true,  a 
good  deal  like  playing  a  game.  It  is  a  method  which 
would  be  equally  disrespectful  and  disappointing  if  we 
tried  to  apply  it  to  the  Sistine  Madonna  or  Sargent's  Old 
Testament  Prophets.  But  Detaille's  style  of  drawing 
is  very  different :  here  the  minute  finish  of  all  the  par- 
ticulars (even  to  the  chilly,  huddled-up  look  of  the  far- 
thest soldier  in  the  background)  invites  a  different  kind 
of  study,  and  awakens  a  different  kind  of  admiration. 

There  is  in  this  picture,  besides  its  immediate  story, 
a  succession  of  striking  contrasts,  giving  it  accent,  so 
to  speak,  like  the  vigorously  marked  accent  of  military 
music.  Thus,  we  have  dark  figures  of  men  against  white 
snow ;  the  ancient  building  crumbling  at  the  sills  over 
against  the  sturdy  young  officers  so  full  of  life  and 
strength  ;  the  decisive  alertness  of  these  few  responsible 
leaders  with  their  distinct  individuality,  set  off  by  the 
ready,  acquiescent  passiveness  of  the  private  soldiers, 
grouped  in  a  mass  like  some  huge  weapon  to  be  wielded 
by  a  will  quite  outside  itself  ;  and,  most  suggestive  of  all 
from  the  "  story  '  point  of  view,  we  have  the  almost 
microscopically  clear  detail  of  the  foreground  and  middle 
distance  (the  present  tense  of  the  story),  contrasted  with 
the  blank  uncertainty  of  mist  and  haze  beyond. 

What  is  to  be  the  fate  of  this  little  company  with  its 
alert,  athletic  leaders,  now  so  full  of  vigor  to  plan  and 
to  execute  ?  Will  the  day's  end  find  that  boyish,  blonde 
officer  in  the  tall  boots  and  the  fur-trimmed  coat  still 
energetic  and  gay,  equally  ready  for  a  dance  or  for  a 
mad    gallop    across    smoky    fields  ?       Or    will    he    have 


PICTURES  THAT  TELL   A    STORY  51 

finished  this  chapter  of  his  career,  and  be  beginning  a 
new  one  somewhere  in  the  Next  Country,  where  there 
is  no  more  warfare  with  bullets  and  swords  ? 


The  Othello  of  Becker 1  is  one  of  the  pictures  which 
tells  a  story  with  dramatic  spirit  and  local  color  happily 
combined.  We  could  construct  quite  a  part  of  the  old 
play  for  ourselves  on  the  strength  of  this  clever  pic- 
torial rendering  of  one  suggested  scene.  The  old  man 
and  the  young  girl  must  be  father  and  daughter.  The 
swarthy  guest  with  the  picturesque  costume  is  evidently 
watching  the  effect  of  his  own  exciting  story.  Desde- 
mona's  frankly  adoring  attention  cannot  possibly  be  mis- 
understood, and  the  possibilities  of  parental  objection  and 
interference  are  all  to  be  read  in  the  set  lips  and  square 
jaw  of  the  senator.  Iago  and  Cassio  and  Emilia  have 
not  yet  come  into  tragic  touch  with  the  drama.  What 
we  have  here  is  the  idyllic  prologue  as  sketched  by 
Othello  himself,  in  the  account  of  his  courtship  given 
to  the  Duke  (Act  I,  Scene  3). 

Aside  from  the  interest  of  the  suggested  story,  the 
picture  has  attractions  worth  noting,  —  color,  for  in- 
stance. We  can  hardly  help  thinking  of  the  picture  as 
gorgeous  with  color,  so  full  it  is  of  the  indications  of 
rich  hues  and  textures.  Brabantio's  robe  must  be  of 
velvet  by  the  way  in  which  it  takes  the  light  on  its 
thick  folds.  The  gleam  of  Desdemona's  gown  suggests 
satin.  It  is  an  interesting  experiment  to  fill  out  the 
colors  in  our  minds,  planning  combinations  of  hues  that 
will  be  gorgeous  yet  not  gaudy,  against  the  background 
of  marble  walls  and  pillared  balustrade.  Othello  him- 
1  Carl  Becker,  a  contemporary  German  painter. 


52  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

self  must  certainly  be  brilliant  as  a  tropical  bird  in  that 
magnificent  confection  of  doublet  and  hose,  sash  and 
hanging  sleeves,  dagger  and  chain,  all  contrasted  with 
the  Moorish  complexion  !  And,  as  if  the  artist  could 
not  give  us  enough  color,  we  find  still  more  in  the  seat 
which  Othello  has  just  quitted,  in  the  rug  upon  the 
floor,  in  Desdemona's  embroidered  cushion,  in  the  stiff 
brocaded  and  satin-lined  curtain  behind  the  open  book, 
and  in  the  gleaming  glass  and  metal  of  the  lamp  swing- 
ing before  a  panel  of  the  Maddnna  and  Child.  The 
picture  is  crowded  as  full  of  color  as  a  fruit-cake  is  of 
sweetmeats,  onl}r  we  must  paint  in  the  actual  hues  with 
our  imaginations. 

The  soft,  hazy  atmosphere  about  the  buildings  on  the 
other  side  of  the  canal  suggests  warmth  and  languor, 
yet  there  is  no  clear,  brilliant  sunshine  :  mark  the 
absence  of  all  sharply  defined  shadows.  The  sun  seems 
to  be  veiled  in  a  luminous  mist,  lending  to  the  distant 
view  an  air  of  delicious  vagueness.  It  is  a  place  for 
a  damsel  of  Desdemona's  temperament  (no  scholarly 
Homola  —  she  !)  'to  be  driven  to  some  great  emotional 
outburst  by  the  monotony  of  elderly  companionship  and 
big,  dry  books. 

This  picture  is  a  good  one  to  study  at  short  range, 
like  Detaille's  soldiers,  holding  the  page  near  enough 
to  the  eyes  to  cut  off  surrounding  objects,  so  that  one 
seems  to  be  actually  on  the  spot,  close  beside  the  people. 
See  how  beautifully  the  mottled  coloring  of  the  marble 
pillars  is  suggested.  See  the  severe  elegance  of  the 
darker-colored  marble  behind  the  father,  so  beautifully 
carved.  See  how  Desdemona's  fair  hair  is  set  off  by 
contrast  with  her  father's  velvet  robes,  and  how  the 
two   faces  —  that  of   the  stern  old   man  and  the   bloom- 


,*£k> 


54  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

ing  young  woman  —  insist  on  a  certain  family  resem- 
blance underlying  all  their  detailed  differences.  Yes, 
the  girl  does  look  like  her  father.  No  wonder  that, 
when  she  had  once  made  her  choice,  she  stood  by  it ; 
there  is  a  vein  of  obstinate  resolution  underneath  all 
her  surface  prettiness  and  flower-like  delicacy.  Ill-fated 
Desdemona  !  We  like  best  to  think  of  her  here  in  her 
father's  house,  an  ignorant,  lovely,  lovable  girl,  with  a 
heart  aching  full  of  adoration  for  her  chosen  hero,  dream- 
ing vague,  girlish  dreams  of  a  long  life  together,  made  all 
of  valorous  deeds  on  his  part  and  wifely  devotion  on  her 
own. 

When  the  matrons  of  to-day  were  children  in  the 
nursery,  they  were  delighted  with  the  drawings  of  a 
German  artist  named  Oscar  Pletsch.  His  style  of  work- 
ing is  a  little  old  fashioned  now,  but  his  exquisitely  sym- 
pathetic understanding  of  childhood  is  something  that 
never  can  go  out  of  date. 

This  simple,  homely,  domestic  interior  is  what  most 
appealed  to  him  —  an  interior  where  mistress,  maid,  and 
babies  cheerfully  take  life  as  it  comes,  full  of  common- 
place duties  and  innocent  fun.  Here  preparations  are 
making  for  dinner.  The  kettle  is  steaming  on  the  stove. 
The  girl  at  the  cupboard  is  taking  down  a  huge  loaf  of 
bread  for  the  coming  meal.  The  plump,  capable  house- 
wife, with  the  neatly  braided  hair,  is  absorbed  for  a  minute 
in  some  thrifty  plan  about  making  over  the  children's 
clothes.  Although  she  stares  so  intently  at  the  stick  in 
her  hand,  she  is  not  thinking  of  it  at  all  ;  it  is  some 
project  of  housekeeping  that  is  taking  shape  in  her 
flaxen  head.  And  meantime  the  children,  in  blissful 
ignorance  that  clothes  have  to  be  planned  for  at  all,  are 


PICTURES  THAI'  TELL   A   STORY  5"> 

absorbed  in  the  fascinating  spectacle  of  the  fishes  in  the 
tul)  and  on  the  floor.  The  serious  intentness  of  the  small 
boy's  inspection  is  something  we  have  seen  and  smiled 
over  many  and  many  a  time.  They  have  so  responsible 
an  air,  these  wee  men  with  tousled  heads,  as  they  watch 
gravely  over  the  occupations  of  the  carpenter  and  the 
cook  and  the  street  workman  ! 

The  roly-poly  body  leaning-  on  the  edge  of  the  tub  is 
likely  enough  to  slip  and  fall  in.  She  has  already  lost 
one  shoe  in  the  course  of  the  morning's  travels.  If  now 
she  plunges  her  shoulders  into  the  tub  of  water,  she  is 
lucky  to  have  a  good-natured,  philosophic  mother  to  pull 
her  out,  dry  her  tears,  change  her  clothes,  and  put  her 
in  the  way  of  different  entertainment. 

There  is  something  irresistibly  appealing  in  the  third 
baby,  the  funny  little  figure  bent  over  to  see  if  the  queer 
monster  with  gaping  mouth  will  dare  to  bite  her  fat 
forefinger.  Suppose  she  should  accidentally  touch  the 
scaly  thing  —  ugh!  what  a  jump  and  recoil  would  be 
there.  This  round  little  maiden  is  not  the  first  to  find 
bravery  easier  at  a  generous  distance  from  the  danger. 

There  is  nothing  heroic  about  the  people  this  artist 
loved  to  draw,  but  they  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  such 
sunshiny  content  that  the  sight  of  them  warms  our  hearts. 
Children  love  pictures  like  this  for  their  faithful,  precise 
portraying  of  things  which  they  recognize  or  which  sug- 
gest episodes  easily  built  up  in  their  own  imaginations. 
And  grown-up  people  hold  them  dear  like  the  memories 
of  their  own  childhood,  when 

"  The  world  (was)  so  full  of  a  number  of  things  " 

that  it  read  like  a  big,  hazy,  marvellous  picture-book  from 
one  long  day  to  another. 


56  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

In  this  drawing,  where  we  can  see  the  very  strokes  of 
the  artist's  pen,  it  is  very  interesting-  to  watch  him  at 
work,  as  it  were,  and  see  how  he  gets  his  effects.  Notice, 
for  one  thing,  how  he  puts  space  into  the  picture,  making 
the  farther  wall  of  the  room  look  as  if  it  really  were  quite 
a  distance  beyond  the  stove  and  the  table.  It  is  chiefly 
a  matter  of  emphasis  or  accent  of  lines.  That  is,  the  lines 
used  in  showing  things  in  the  background  are  dimmer 
and  fainter.  The  fact  that  we  see  the  outlines  of  the 
bench  and  the  tub  so  much  more  distinctly  than  we  see 
the  outlines  of  the  objects  hanging  on  the  wall  between 
the  mother's  shoulder  and  the  huge,  overhanging  shelf, 
makes  us  feel  that  the  bench  and  the  tub  are  near  and 
the  open  wall  farther  off. 

The  artist's  manner  of  showing  us  the  hair  on  his 
people's  heads  is  something  interesting,  it  is  so  simple 
and  yet  so  effective.  See  how  few  touches  give  us  the 
impression  of  the  mother's  tidy  braids  and  coils  ;  even 
the  perfectly  blank  spaces  of  white  paper  between  the 
lines  make  us  think  of  smooth  brushed  hair,  reflecting 
the  light  from  its  glossy  surface,  and  not  of  white  paper. 
See,  again,  how  the  effect  of  plump  roundness  is  given  to 
her  arms  and  to  those  of  the  urchin  on  the  bench,  by  a 
few  light  strokes  on  the  side  where  the  arm  is  in  shadow. 
It  is  a  pretty  touch  to  make  the  puffing  cloud  of  steam 
from  the  kettle  look  transj^arent,  indicating  it  by  the 
fewest  possible  touches  where  it  comes  between  us  and 
the  distant,  light-colored  wall,  and  making  it,  by  the  addi- 
tion of  more  and  clearer  strokes,  seem  to  take  the  darker 
color  of  the  chimney  where  it  comes  between  us  and  that 
different  surface. 

For  there  is  a  good  deal  of  color  in  this  picture,  even 
though  it  is  made  only  with  streaks  of  black  ink  on  white 


^  -,\        X      \ 


FISH  FOU  DINNEE.— Pletsch. 


58  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

paper.  Look  at  the  valiant  mite  holding  out  her  fore- 
finger to  the  fish.  Her  long  "  tyer  "  and  her  frock  are 
so  managed  as  to  give  the  effect  of  a  strong  contrast  of 
color,  only  we  are  left  to  imagine  the  detail  of  it  for 
ourselves.  Is  it  a  red  frock  and  a  white  apron,  or  a  dark 
indigo-blue  frock  with  a  light  pink  apron,  or  what? 
There  is  a  similar  suggestion  of  contrasted  colors  in  the 
sleeves  and  the  bodice  of  the  mother's  gown  ;  we  can 
see  by  the  way  the  light  and  shade  fall  on  and  under 
the  arm  that  the  additional  strokes  on  the  bodice  mean 
darker  or  deeper  color  in  the  staff  itself,  and  not  simply 
temporary  shadow.  Again,  the  heavy  lines  across  the 
stove  door  suggest  at  once  that  it  is  of  some  material 
different  from  the  body  of  the  stove,  —  iron,  probably, 
contrasted  with  the  lighter-colored  surface  of  tiles  of 
baked  earthenware.  Indeed,  we  should  necessarily  infer 
from  that  nonchalant  pose  of  bare  arms  on  the  stove  that  it 
could  not  be  all  of  iron,  like  our  American  stoves  to-day. 

What  did  our  good-natured  German  artist  do  ?  He 
made  a  few  marks  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  that  is  all.  But 
those  few  marks,  duplicated  for  us  on  our  page  here, 
build  up  by  a  magic  of  their  own  a  frugal  German  home 
of  thirty  years  ago,  with  its  characteristic  furniture  and 
simple  belongings,  call  back  some  now  ponderous  dame 
to  the  days  of  her  young  wifehood  ;  make  children  once 
more  of  three  grown-up  people,  now  heads  of  their  own 
households.  Perhaps  the  model  for  that  boy  is  now  a 
soldier  under  the  Emperor.  Perhaps  each  sister  now  has 
babies  of  her  own,  and  tells  them  at  bedtime  stories  about 
just  such  an  old  kitchen  with  a  tiled  stove,  and  a  tall 
cupboard  with  double  doors,  and  a  brook  behind  the 
house  where  they  used  to  go  a-fishing  long  ago  with 
strings  and  bent-up  pins. 


CHAPTER    V 

ANIMALS 

fT^HE  Return  to  the  Farm1  gives  us  a  bit  of  French  coun- 
try  life,  but  it  is  of  a  sort  that  translates  itself  read- 
ily into  the  American  consciousness,  at  least  for  those 
who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  on  intimately 
friendly  terms  with  country  sights  and  sounds.  It  is  the 
simplest  thing  in  the  world,  —  just  a  group  of  farm  ani- 
mals coming  home  down  a  long  lane  at  the  close  of  day, 
—  but,  to  initiated  eyes,  it  has  all  the  charm  of  a  com- 
parison of  experiences  with  some  congenial  acquaintance. 
Yes,  indeed,  we  know  just  what  he  means  !  Have  we 
not  seen  just  such  grassy  roadways  and  embowering 
trees  ;  just  such  wide,  delightful  reaches  of  fields ;  just 
such  swampy  little  ponds  where  the  cattle  love  to  linger, 
drinking  and  switching  their  tails  as  they  drink  ?  Have 
not  we  too  watched  the  play  of  light  and  shade  over  the 
angular  bodies  of  meditative  cows  (they  seem  "  all 
elbows,"  those  large-eyed  beasts)  and  over  the  cushiony 
contours  of  straying  sheep?     Have   we   not  petted  and 

1  By  Constant  Troyon  (1810-1865),  one  of  the  greatest  French  painters 
of  landscape  and  animals.  Troyon  began  work  as  a  porcelain  painter  in 
the  Sevres  potteries,  but  his  heart  was  in  larger,  out-of-door  work.  It  is 
said  that  during  his  years  of  struggle  with  poverty  he  used  to  paint  land- 
scapes till  his  unreplenished  funds  gave  out,  return  to  the  porcelain  paint- 
ing long  enough  to  fill  his  purse,  and  then  turn  once  more  to  his  beloved 
fields.  When  he  died,  one  of  his  most  careful  provisions  was  for  a  Pari- 
sian scholarship  for  promising  young  painters  of  animals. 

59 


60  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

patted  and  scolded  a  dog  of  just  such  mischievous  procliv- 
ities as  this  one  with  whom  matronly  mooley  has  quite 
lost  patience  ?  And,  best  of  all,  do  we  not  know  that 
very  touch  of  late  afternoon  sunshine,  —  the  kind  that  lays 
long,  horizontal  shadows  over  the  ground,  — ■  gestures  full 
of  unguessed  significance,  fascinating  us  with  a  myste- 
rious quality  in  their  beauty,  suggestive  of  some  wonder- 
ful meaning,  we  know  not  what  ? 

There  is  something  about  this  late  afternoon  sunshine 
which  cannot  quite  be  put  into  words,  though  Troyon 
succeeded  pretty  well  in  putting  it  into  his  picture.1 
Somebody  once  wrote  a  charming  little  story  about  a 
young    Swiss   girl,  who,  to  help  out  the  slender   family 

1  "  Suppose  ye  want  to  paint  a  field  of  ripe  corn  ;  will  ye  get  at  it,  do 
ye  think,  by  sitting  down  and  pentin'  the  stalks  and  the  heads, — ay,  if 
ye  were  to  spend  a  lifetime  at  it  and  paint  fifty  thousand  of  them  ?  Ay, 
and  if  ye  painted  a  hundred  thousand  of  them  as  like  as  could  be,  ye'd  be 
no  nearer  getting  at  your  cornfield.  For  what  ye  have  to  paint  is  what 
ye  see  ;  and  when  ye  look  at  a  cornfield,  ye  see  na  single  stalks  at  all,  but 
a  great  mass  of  gold,  as  it  were,  with  a  touch  of  orange  here  or  paler  yel- 
low there,  and  a  wash  of  green  where  the  land  is  wet,  and  sometimes  of 
warm  red  even  where  the  stalks  are  mixed  with  weeds  ;  and  ye  are  no 
going  to  get  that  color  either  by  chasing  the  daylight  out  of  the  sky,  and 
taking  the  thing  into  a  room,  and  making  a  clever  bit  of  a  fuzzy  sketch 
in  gray  and  green  and  black.  That's  easy, — but  it's  no  the  cornfield. 
Ay,  and  there's  more.  Ye've  got  to  paint  more  than  ye  see.  Ye've  got 
to  put  just  that  something  into  the  cornfield  that  will  make  people's  hearts 
warm  to  it  when  they  see  it  on  your  canvas.  Suppose  that  ye've  been  ill 
for  a  month  or  two  ;  laid  on  your  back  maybe,  and  sick  tired  of  the  pat- 
tern on  the  wall  o'  your  room  ;  and  at  last  the  day  comes  when  the  doctor 
thinks  you  might  be  lifted  into  a  carriage  and  taken  oot  for  a  drive.  And 
we'll  say  it's  a  fine  warm  afternoon,  and  your  heart  is  just  full  of  wonder 
and  gladness,  like,  at  the  trees  and  the  soft  air,  and  we'll  say  that  all  of  a 
sudden,  at  the  turning  o'  the  road,  ye  come  in  sicht  o'  this  field  of  ripe 
corn,  just  as  yellow  as  yellow  can  be  under  the  afternoon  sky.  Ay,  and 
what  is  it  when  ye  see  such  a  wonderful  and  beautiful  thing  —  what  is  it 
that  brings  the  tears  to  your  e'en  ?  I  say,  what  is  it  ?  For  it's  that  ye've 
got  to  catch  and  put  in  your  picture,  or  ye'll  be  a  d — d  mistake  as  a 
painter  !  "  —  William  Black  in  Shandon  Bells. 


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62  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

fortunes,  went  to  Dresden  as  nurse-maid  in  a  rich  man's 
family.  She  was  sadly  homesick,  this  country  maid,  shut 
up  in  a  brick  house  on  a  city  street,  but  most  of  the  time 
her  duties  kept  her  from  thinking-  too  much  about  the  old 
familiar  things.  Only,  late  each  afternoon,  as  the  sun 
sank  low  in  the  west,  sending  its  level  beams  in  through 
the  house  windows,  she  could  not  bear  just  that  look, 
remembering  how  those  same  rays  fell  upon  the  fields  at 
home.     And  she  used  to  cover  her  face  with  her  apron. 

It  might  seem  at  first  thought  as  if  Troyon  had  not  done 
much  here  beyond  holding  a  mirror  up  to  nature,  so  like 
nature's  own  self  the  image  seems.  But  we  have,  in  fact, 
a  great  deal  to  thank  him  for  besides  just  his  skill  in  mak- 
ing his  trees  look  like  trees,  his  cows  like  cows,  and  his 
sheep  like  sheep.  He  had  an  artist's  eye.  He  knew  not 
only  what  to  see,  but  also  how  to  look  at  it. 

For  instance,  take  the  matter  of  choosing  a  point  of 
view.  Is  not  the  picture  a  great  deal  more  attractive  for 
showing  us  not  only  a  vista  of  fields  at  the  left  of  the  bou- 
quet of  trees,  but  also  a  little  glimpse  of  the  open  country 
at  the  right  ?  Lacking  that  hint  of  nearly  level  reaches 
continuing  at  the  right-hand  side  of  this  causeway  path, 
we  should  have  no  good  clew  to  the  "  lay  of  the  land  "  off 
in  this  direction.  Try  covering  up  a  half-inch  section 
across  the  right  end  of  the  picture  and  see  how  much  we 
lose  of  that  feeling  of  vast,  roomy  space  above  and  around 
us  which  was  before  so  pleasant. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  artist  had  chosen  a  standpoint 
which  brought  that  cluster  of  trees  exactly  in  the  middle 
of  the  picture,  with  equal  sky  spaces  at  the  right  and  left, 
we  should  probably  not  have  liked  it  half  so  well  as  now. 
Exact  symmetry  in  a  landscape  instantly  impresses  us  as 
artificial  and  unpleasant. 


ANIMALS  63 

The  repetition  of  the  contours  of  the  large  mass  of  trees 
by  the  others  over  beyond  the  cows'  watering-place  is 
something  grateful  to  the  eye.  We  find  it  pleasant, 
somewhat  as  we  find  an  octave  pleasanter  to  the  ear  than 
a  single  note.  And,  besides,  those  farther  trees,  by  their 
intervention  between  us  and  the  horizon,  help  us  measure 
the  distance  with  the  eye.  They  help  make  a  very  few 
inches  (here  actually  only  a  small  fraction  of  an  inch)  of 
space  to  mean  miles  of  space.  That  is  a  part  of  the 
artist's  magic. 

And  see,  too,  how,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  animals 
are  all,  in  a  general  way,  coming  towards  us,  Troyon  man- 
aged to  make  us  see  them  in  a  great  many  different  posi- 
tions, so  as  to  bring  out  all  their  characteristic  proportions, 
their  varietv  of  curves  and  angles.  Each  attitude  chosen 
for  portrayal  is  exquisitely  true  to  life,  and  each  gives  us 
some  beautiful  change  from  the  contours  of  the  others. 
And  this,  of  course,  did  not  merely  happen.  Troyon 
grouped  his  beloved  beasts  in  such  a  way  as  to  try  to 
make  us  see  them  with  his  own  appreciative  eyes. 

The  sun  is  steadily  sinking.  Is  it  possible  those  shad- 
ows across  the  road  have  grown  no  longer  in  all  this  time 
that  we  have  been  standing  looking  back  down  the  lane  ? 
It  is  time  for  the  cows  to  be  milked  and  for  the  sheep  to 
be  turned  into  their  pen.  Let  us  whistle  to  the  dog,  give 
an  encouraging  chirrup  to  that  doubtful  donkey,  and 
move  on  towards  home. 


S 


64  HOW  TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

Though  cats  are  so  common  in  actual  life,  compara- 
tively few  artists  have  been  successful  in  representing 
them.  Lambert *  is  one  of  these  few,  and  the  family 
group  shown  here  (page  65)  is  deservedly  popular. 

But  wait  a  moment.  Let  us  not  turn  the  page  after 
one  hasty,  approving  glance.  It  is  not  enough  to  recog- 
nize that  these  are  cats,  and  that  they  are  up  on  the  table 
where  they  have  no  business  to  be.  Any  child  can  see  as 
much  as  that.  The  picture  can  give  us  a  good  deal  more 
pleasure  than  that  of  merely  identifying  the  animals  and 
the  furniture,  if  we  give  it  a  chance. 

Our  artist  evidently  saw  a  great  deal  to  admire  in  the 
outlines  of  these  graceful  creatures  and  in  the  exquisite 
textures  and  colors  of  their  fur.  It  was  a  clever  idea  to 
show  us  five  different  poses  while  having  only  four  cats. 

See  how  significant  is  the  mother  cat's  attitude,  the 
long,  lithe,  curving  and  recurving  outline  of  her  head, 
shoulders,  body,  and  tail  leading  the  eye  from  table  top  to 
bird-cage,  delighting  us  with  the  beauty  of  its  curves  in 
themselves,  and  at  the  same  time  suggesting  so  clearly  the 
movement  meditated  inside  that  alert  head.  The  con- 
trast of  sleekness  with  flufhness  in  her  fur  and  her  chil- 
dren's is  beautifully  shown.  The  profile  of  the  kitten  at 
the  left  side  of  the  picture  irresistibly  suggests  a  lion 
(compare  with  the  group  on  page  211)  ;  yet  see  how  the 
tail  of  the  same  kitten  neutralizes  this  suggestion  of  dig- 
nity and  stateliness  by  its  babyish  inconsequence  and  fri- 
volity. This  mingling  of  would-be  dignity  and  inherent 
silliness  is,  indeed,  for  the  most  of  us,  the  chief  charm  of 
a  kitten's  character,  but  it  takes  a  clever  artist  to  capt- 
ure so  evasive  a  quality  and  put  it  on  paper  or  canvas. 

1  E.  Lambert,  a  contemporary  French  artist.  The  original  of  this 
picture  is  in  the  Luxembourg  gallery  at  Paris. 


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66  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

See  the  solemnity  of  the  eyes  of  the  next  kitten  reflected 
in  the  mirror  ;  how  can  so  grave  an  expression  belong  to 
the  owner  of  that  deliciously  fluffy  bunch  of  a  body  and 
those  diminutive  forepaws,  braced  wide  apart  in  babyish 
awkwardness?  There  is  something  marvellously  wise 
and  judicial  about  a  cat's  mysterious  eyes.  When  we  have 
studied  them  a  little,  we  hardly  wonder  that  the  old- 
time  Egyptians  felt  there  must  be  some  supernatural 
power  lurking  behind  that  inscrutableness,  and  so  pru- 
dently paid  them  special  respect  and  honor. 

Again,  besides  being  delusively  wise  looking,  cats'  eyes 
are  so  beautiful  in  their  color  and  lustre.  See  how  de- 
lightfully the  artist  caught  the  characteristic,  jewel-like 
gleam  in  the  eyes  of  the  wee  fellow  at  the  right-hand  edge 
of  the  table.  There  are,  too,  other  expressions  of  color  in 
the  picture.  There  are  many  variations  of  color  in  the 
fur  of  the  four  animals,  and  many  besides  in  the  furniture 
and  other  accessories.  The  black-and-white  reproduction 
leaves  us  to  imagine  for  ourselves  the  actual  color  effects 
at  which  it  hints ;  let  us  supply  the  colors  from  our  own 
imagination.  It  is  entertaining  to  fill  these  hints  out 
in  fancy,  seeing  the  picture  in  our  mind's  eye  with 
table,  chair  back,  chest  of  drawers,  bird-cage,  earthenware 
dishes,  and  the  rest  in  harmonious  coloring.  We  may  not 
hit  upon  the  artist's  exact  idea;  but,  if  we  follow  the  hints 
of  the  print  as  well  as  may  be,  we  can  make  it  mean  much 
more  than  it  meant  at  first  sight  :  the  table  and  the  chest 
of  drawers,  the  shallow  plate,  and  the  odd,  three-legged 
vessel  with  the  projecting  handle  taking  their  places  as 
parts  of  a  harmony  in  colors  as  well  as  of  a  harmony  in 
masses  and  lines. 

The  condition  of  the  mirror-lined  cover  of  the  work- 
box  is  eloquent  of  past  experiences  and  exploits  on  the 


ANIMALS  67 

part  of  this  lively  family  ;  and,  as  we  see  when  we  study 
their  poses  carefully,  we  have  also  clear  testimony  as  to 
what  they  mean  to  do  next.  It  is  interesting  to  notice 
how,  although  all  four  animals  are  still  just  for  the  mo- 
ment, we  have  a  vivid  suggestion  of  movements  that  each 
one  is  just  about  to  make.  The  mother-cat,  as  we  have 
already  noticed,  is  planning  for  a  spring  upon  the  bird- 
cage. The  left-hand  kitten  in  another  instant  will  have 
sent  the  ball  of  yarn  spinning  to  the  floor,  and  the  absent 
housewife's  scissors,  we  may  well  believe,  will  go  clatter- 
ing down  after  the  ball  of  yarn.  After  the  reflected  puss 
has  studied  her  duplicate  a  few  seconds  longer,  she  will 
be  inaugurating  a  quarrel  or  a  game  of  romps  with  the 
kitten  behind  the  looking-glass.  And  then,  with  all  these 
interesting  things  happening,  will  the  jewel-eyed  morsel 
be  long  content  merely  to  lean  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  a 
passive  spectator  ?  It  is  a  lively  drama  that  we  find  sug- 
gested here.  And  does  not  the  artist  really  show  us  a 
great  deal  more  of  feline  beauty  and  feline  disposition 
by  representing  the  dainty,  mischievous  creatures  at 
momentary  rest  before  spirited  movement,  rather  than  by 
showing  us  the  actual  movement  ?  From  these  charming, 
motionless  poses  wre  can  easily  supply  the  coming  move- 
ments in  our  own  imagination,  so  that  we  have  practi- 
cally both  pictures  to  enjoy  ;  whereas,  it  would  not  be 
nearly  as  natural  or  easy  for  most  of  us,  given  the  repre- 
sentation of  swift,  complicated  movement,  to  complement 
it  in  our  minds  with  images  of  the  same  figures  grouped 
in  repose. 


$ 


68  HOW    TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Among  the  few  women  who  have  attained  distinction 
in  painting,  Rosa  Bonheur1  is  probably  the  best  known. 
Her  long  life  has  been  spent  in  the  shrewd  and  faithful 
study  of  animals,  —  horses,  cattle,  donkeys,  lions,  all  sorts 
of  four-footed  creatures. 

The  picture  of  cattle  ploughing,  shown  on  page  69,  was 
painted  some  fifty  years  ago  when  the  artist  was  a  young 
woman,  and  its  homely,  wholesome  vigor  and  truth  earned 
prompt  recognition.  Nothing  could  be  more  simple,  and 
in  one  sense  commonplace,  than  a  team  of  oxen,  plough- 
ing an  open  field  ;  but  to  such  an  artist's  eye  the  scene  has 
endless  attractions.  Let  us  find  what  the  gifted  French 
woman  saw  in  this  bit  of  nature  and  life. 

Was  not  the  tremendous  strength  of  the  awkward 
creatures  one  of  the  things  that  most  appealed  to  her  ? 
Certainly  it  is  one  of  the  tilings  which  she  most  vividly 
shows  to  us.  Notice  the  hind  leg  of  the  forward  ox  and 
see  how  its  lines  of  bone  and  muscle  can  be  traced  away 
up  into  the  hip  joint.  Look  at  the  forward  leg  of  the  ox 
next  behind  and  see  how  the  vigorous  thrust  of  this 
member  can  be  traced  from  the  veiy  shoulder.  The 
power  acting  through  these  living  levers  shows  much  more 
forcibly  for  our  being  able  to  trace  these  lines  through- 
out. Imagine  what  a  difference  there  would  be  between 
the  impressive  effect  of  an  athlete's  naked  arm  and  that 
of  the  same  arm  hidden  from  shoulder  to  knuckles  in  a 
bishop's  voluminous  sleeve  !  Rosa  Bonheur  knew  ox 
anatomy  by  heart ;  she  had  studied  every  one  of  the 
curving  ribs  and  cunning  joints  that  show  through  those 
tough  hides,  and  she  knew,  "besides,  just  how  much  to 
show  us  in  order  to  make  us  feel  the  chief  characteristic 

1  Rosalie  Marie  Bonheur,  born  in  France  in  1828  and  still  at  work. 
The  original  of  the  picture  on  page  69  is  in  the  Luxembourg  in  Paris. 


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70  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

of  the  patient  brutes  she  loved.  Strength  they  have,  and 
strength  indeed  they  need  for  a  task  like  that.  Observe 
the  long,  gradual,  upward  slant  made  by  the  lines  of  the 
backs  of  the  animals  as  they  drag  the  clumsy  old-fashioned 
plough  through  the  tough,  caked  soil.  It  is  not  obtru- 
sively emphasized,  but,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
upward  slant  of  the  breast  bones,  it  gives  one  the  feeling 
of  a  long,  hard  pull.  The  gearing  of  the  oxen  is  after  a 
fashion  little  known  to  most  of  us,  though  still  practised 
in  some  farming  regions.  Instead  of  wearing  a  yoke 
across  the  shoulders,  these  cattle  carry  the  central  pole 
or  beam  by  a  primitive  sort  of  harness  fastened  to  their 
horns.  Shouting  and  prodding  on  the  driver's  part  are 
fashions  which  have  probably  held  about  the  same  since 
ploughs  were  first  invented.  It  is  easy  to  see  which  of 
that  middle  pair  of  oxen  is  the  sufferer  just  now.  The 
rolling  eye  of  the  magnificent  fellow  nearest  us  seems  to 
express  pain  and  repressed  indignation,  as  if  to  say, 
"  Stupid  !  Why  can't  he  see  I  am  doing  the  best  I  can  ? 
I  just  wish  he  could  try  my  end  of  the  job  for  a  while." 
And  his  mate  has  the  patiently  meek  and  neutral  look  of 
one  who  realizes  it  may  be  his  own  turn  next. 

The  varied  colors  of  these  wrinkled  hides  and  the  play 
of  the  sunshine  over  them  are  beautifully  shown  even 
in  this  little  print.  The  whole  picture  has  a  fresh, 
hearty,  out-of-doors  effect.  It  almost  seems  as  if  we 
could  smell  the  delicious,  earthy  fragrance  of  the  up- 
turned sods  and  feel  the  warmth  of  the  sunny  air. 

Before  we  leave  the  page  let  us  give  one  glance  towards 
the  woods  in  the  distance.  Perhaps  they  meant  to  the 
artist  chiefly  an  opposite  sloping  diagonal,  to  pleasantly 
balance  the  slant  of  the  oxen's  pull  and  keep  the  picture 
as  a  whole  from  seeming  likely  to  slide  out  of  its  frame. 


ANIMALS  71 

Perhaps  the  purpose  was  partly  to  give  a  strong  mass 
of  color,  different  from  that  of  the  brown  earth  and  the 
sunshiny  sky  and  the  brawny  oxen.  And  possibly  it  was 
also  in  the  artist's  consciousness  that  this  bit  of  woods, 
giving  delinite  limits  to  one  part  of  the  field,  would  sug- 
gest to  us  the  idea  of  other  enelosing  boundaries,  and  so 
of  the  simple,  self-respectful  satisfaction  of  managing  a 
wee  section  of  the  big  earth's  surface  for  oneself,  com- 
manding the  brute  creation  into  loyal  service  and  making 
ten  blades  grow  where  one  had  grown  before. 


Artists'  jokes  oftenest  turn  on  the  follies  and  absurdi- 
ties of  us  humankind.  Probably  wre  ourselves  really 
are  more  ridiculous  than  any  of  the  other  inhabitants 
of  this  amusing  world.  But  now  and  then  we  find 
a  man  whose  imagination  has  a  whimsical  bent,  ena- 
bling him  to  conceive  the  quaint  humors  of  animal  life. 
Church  1  is  famous  for  this  quality,  portraying  all  sorts 
of  incredible,  fairy-story  situations  with  an  air  of  demure 
good  faith  which  is  exquisitely  '"taking." 

We  have  all  read  many  times  the  old  fable  of  the  race 
between  the  hare  and  the  tortoise,  when  the  hare,  pre- 
suming too  far  upon  his  established  reputation,  lay  off 
for  a  nap,  and  the  tortoise,  by  keeping  at  it,  came  out 
ahead.  But  who,  save  Mr.  Church,  could  see  in  his 
mind's  e}-e  the  closing  scenes  of  the  drama  as  we  have 
them  on  page  73  ?  One  who  thoroughly  enjoys  the  fun 
of  these  drawings  is  sorely  tempted  to  talk  too  much 
about  them,  but  it  is  well  known  that  a  joke  analyzed  is 

1  F.  S.  Church  of  New  York,  an  artist  of  wide  reputation,  especially 
in  illustrative  work. 


72  HOW   TO    ENJOY   PICTURES 

a   joke    assassinated.      Let    us   each   discover  the  subtile 
excellences  of  this  one  for  himself. 

It  is  only  after  we  have  taken  in  the  delicious  humor 
that  we  begin  to  notice  the  cleverness  of  the  composition 
and  the  workmanship.  Could  a  turtle's  shell  be  better 
shown  in  all  its  hard,  brilliant,  mosaic  effects  than  this 
artist  shows  it  with  pencil  and  paper?  And  how  charm- 
ingly graceful  is  the  fashion  in  which  the  two  scenes 
are  clearly  separated  for  the  eye,  yet  held  together  for 
the  thought.  The  two  drawings  are  really  nestled  in- 
side the  principal  curves  of  a  long  scroll  shaped  like  a 
reversed  S.  The  scroll  begins  unobtrusively  in  the 
outline  of  the  distant  hillside  at  the  top  of  the  page, 
comes  down  through  the  "  goal "  post,  trails  off  towards 
the  left  in  that  wandering  spray  of  bindweed,  and,  after 
taking  another  downward  turn  around  the  turtle's  back, 
curls  about  and  ends  in  the  bending  spray,  where  four 
giggling  little  birds  talk  the  whole  thing  over. 


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THE   HAKE   AND   THE  TORTOISE.  —  Church. 


CHAPTER   VI 

PORTRAITS 

/"\NE  of  the  most  famous  portraits  in  existence  is  that 
^^^  of  Mono,  Lisa  (My  Lady  Lisa),  by  Lionardo  da 
Vinci.1  Very  few  pictures  have  ever  received  so  much 
admiration  as  this  one,  during  the  four  hundred  years 
since  it  was  painted.  If  we  feel  the  charm  of  it  at 
once,  so  much  the  better  ;  still,  we  shall  be  quite  par- 
donable if  at  the  first  glance  we  have  thought  the  smil- 
ing lady  not  particularly  pretty,  but  strange  and  puzzling. 
Only  we  will  not  on  that  account  pass  the  picture  by. 
A  portrait  over  which  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
painters  spent  years  of  patient  work — considering  it 
even  then  not  quite  finished  —  must  have  a  great  deal 
in  it.  If  we  do  not  see  much  in  it,  the  fault  is  ours, 
not  the  painter's.  If  we  do  not  all  see  just  the  same  things 
in  it,  we  have  each  a  right  to  our  own  impressions.  A 
great  picture  may  bear  a  dozen  dissimilar  messages  to  a 
dozen  dissimilar  types  of  mind  and  temperament.  Until 
the  critics  are  agreed  upon  uniform  understanding  of 
Hamlet,  we  need  not  be  disturbed  by  finding  that  many 

1  One  of  the  greatest  geniuses  of  Italy  (1452-1510).  He  was  eminent 
in  a  great  many  different  ways, —  as  painter,  author,  architect,  sculptor, 
scientist,  musician,  and  mechanical  engineer.  The  original  of  this  pict- 
ure hangs  in  the  Louvre.  Mona  Lisa  was  the  wife  of  an  Italian 
named  Francesco  del  Gioconde,  and  her  portrait  is  sometimes  called  La 
Gioconda. 

74 


PORTRAITS  75 

men  tire  of  many  minds  in  regard  to  this  problematic 
picture  now  before  us. 

( hi  one  point  our  admiration  is  a  unit.  The  hands 
of  this  lady  of  olden  days  are  as  exquisite  as  hands  can 
well  be.  The  more  we  study  their  lovely  outlines,  com- 
paring them  with  the  hands  we  see  on  every-day  people 
around  us,  the  more  we  feel  that  they  are  the  perfect 
i'ullilment  of  a  sort  of  ideal  beauty,  an  ideal  only  dimly 
suggested  and  clumsily  approximated  in  most  of  the 
hands  that  come  under  our  own  direct  observation. 

But  the  head  with  that  strangely  haunting  smile,  rising 
between  us  and  the  fantastic  landscape  such  as  we  have 
seen  in  dreams  !  How  much  of  the  mysterious  quality  of 
the  smile  is  in  those  e}res?  Cover  up  the  lower  part  of 
the  face,  from  the  eyelids  downwards,  and  we  find  their 
look  very  little  changed.  Cover  all  the  upper  part  of  the 
face,  leaving  the  nose  and  mouth  in  sight,  and  we  find  the 
expression  almost  the  same  as  before,  so  much  of  it  lies 
in  the  mouth.  (Notice,  by  the  way,  how  little  the  lips 
tend  to  part,  for  all  their  smiling.  They  are  lips  behind 
which  the  owner's  secrets  would  be  forever  safe.)  Now 
try  one  more  experiment,  if  the  shade  of  Lionardo  will 
pardon  us  the  liberty.  Make  the  Lady  Lisa  close  her 
eyes.  We  can  do  it  by  laying  a  sheet  of  paper  across 
the  upper  part  of  the  picture  in  such  a  way  as  to  cut  off 
the  iris  and  pupil  of  the  eyes,  while  still  showing  the 
softly  shadowed  under  lids.  These  under  lids  seem 
transformed  temporarily  into  upper  lids.  And  still  that 
same  baffling  expression,  even  while  she  sleeps ! 

The  moral  implications  of  the  expression  actually  seem 
different  at  different  times.  Sometimes  the  look  seems 
one  of  innocent  archness  and  coquetry.  Sometimes  we 
seem  to  feel  an  uncanny  element  in  it ;  was  she  possibly 


76  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

one  of  those  strange,  fascinating  creatures  who  could 
poison  her  husband,  strangle  her  babies,  and  stick  an 
opportune  dagger  into  the  heart  of  an  unfaithful  lover, 
all  the  while  walking  before  the  world  with  a  show  of 
virtuous  calm  ? 

Biographers  tell  us  that  the  painter  spent  four  years  try- 
ing to  make  this  portrait  just  what  he  wanted  it  to  be.  It 
is  natural  to  build  up  a  little  romance  in  our  minds  on  the 
strength  of  this  tradition,  picturing  him  as  held  under 
the  spell  of  a  personal  infatuation,  tossed  to  and  fro  by 
the  changing  humors  of  the  capricious  mistress  of  his 
heart,  and  consoling  himself  as  best  he  could  with  the 
artistic  satisfaction  of  immortalizing  her  strange  person- 
ality. But  it  may  be  that,  if  we  drop  the  solution  here, 
we  are  losing  the  great  in  the  little.  Lionardo  may  in- 
deed have  been  in  love  with  this  inscrutable  woman ;  but 
the  fact  is  that  something  of  this  same  facial  expression  is 
traceable  in  others  of  his  pictures  that  have  nominally 
nothing  to  do  with  Francesco  del  Gioconde's  wife.  Some 
idea,  for  which  this  smile  stands,  seems  to  have  haunted 
him.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  painter  meant  more  than 
just  painting  that  one  woman's  portrait.  For  Lionardo 
was  a  great  deal  besides  a  painter  ;  his  mind  was  many- 
sided  to  a  marvellous  degree.  He  believed  that  science 
and  art  had  deep  interrelations,  and  he  was  continually 
probing  deep  into  the  nature  of  things  and  the  philosophy 
of  things.  In  several  lines  of  research — as  his  note- 
books and  published  writings  show  —  he  was  accom- 
plished far  and  away  beyond  the  times.  He  designed 
mills  and  hydraulic  machinery,  guns,  cannon,  war  vessels 
and  paddle-wheel  boats,  civic  and  religious  buildings, 
musical  instruments.  He  studied  fossils,  and  all  but 
reached  —  quite    by    himself  —  the    idea    of    their    being 


MONA   LISA  (LA  GIOCONDA).  — Da  Vinci. 


78  HOW   TO    ENJOY   PICTURES 

remnants  of  prehistoric  life.  He  studied  botany,  chem- 
istry, and  physics,  making  endless  laboratory  experiments, 
and  inventing  ingenious  scientific  apparatus  ;  he  practically 
anticipated  the  invention  of  the  telescope,  and  almost 
grasped  the  principle  of  the  pendulum.  With  all  the  rest, 
lie  was  a  friend  of  the  explorer,  Amerigo  Vespucci,  and 
we  can  imagine  what  surging  emotions  the  stories  of  a 
vast  new  world  beyond  the  Atlantic  must  have  brought  to 
a  man  of  his  alert  intellect  and  imaginative  temperament. 
And  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  Mona  Lisa?  Perhaps 
a  great  deal.  Lionardo  studied  people  just  as  he  studied 
the  rest  of  the  marvellous  world  around  him,  only  with 
still  deeper  interest,  because  of  that  mysterious,  spiritual 
something  which  sets  humanity  above  all  the  rest  of 
visible  creation.  And  Lionardo  had  a  theory  that  every- 
thing has  some  bearing  on  everything  else.  What  then 
so  natural,  for  a  man  with  his  cultivated  sense  of  beauty, 
as  to  wonder  and  ponder  over  the  meaning  of  the  human 
face,  especially  over  the  unknown  reality  behind  a  woman's 
beauty  and  charm?  More  than  one  great  writer  has  been 
haunted  by  the  desire  to  penetrate  into  its  meaning.  Both 
men  and  women  feel  it,      Browning  muses  :  — 

"But  the  time  will  come,  —  at  last  it  will, 

When,  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant  (I  shall  say) 
In  the  lower  earth,  in  the  yeai'S  long  still, 

That  body  and  soul  so  pure  and  gay. 
Why  your  hair  was  amber,  I  shall  divine, 

And  your  mouth  of  your  own  geraniuni's  red  — 
And  what  you  would  do  with  me,  in  fine, 

In  the  new  life  come  in  the  old  one's  stead." 

And  .George  Eliot  philosoymizes  :  — 

"...  The  beauty  of  a  lovely  woman  is  like  music;  what 
can  one  say  more?  Beauty  has  an  expression  beyond  and  far 
above  the   one  woman's  soul  that   it   clothes,    as   the  words  of 


PORTRAITS  79 

genius  have  a  wider  meaning  than  the  thought  that  prompted 
them  ;  it  is  more  than  a  woman's  love  that  moves  us  in  a  woman's 
eyes  —  it  seems  to  be  a  far-off,  mighty  love  that  has  come  near 
to  us,  and  made  speech  for  itself  there;  the  rounded  neck,  the 
dimpled  arm,  move  us  by  something  more  than  their  prettiness 
—  by  their  close  kinship  with  all  we  have  known  of  tenderness 
and  peace." 

It  seems  as  if  our  painter,  four  centuries  ago,  over 
beside  the  Mediterranean,  had  puzzled  over  the  same 
insoluble  problem :  insoluble  because  of  the  psycho- 
logical chasm  which  separates  every  two  human  souls. 
Near  as  we  come  to  our  nearest  and  dearest,  is  there  not 
always  an  impassable  space  between,  implied  by  the  very 
fact  of  distinct,  personal  identity? 

"  We  are  spirits  clad  in  veils  ; 
Man  by  man  was  never  seen ; 
All  our  deep  communing  fails 
To  remove  the  shadowy  screen. 

"  Heart  to  heart  was  never  known  ; 
Mind  with  mind  did  never  meet ; 
We  are  columns  left  alone 

Of  a  temple  once  complete.  .  .  ." 

Was  it  partly  his  sense  of  this  everlasting  mystery  of 
personal  existence  in  the  flesh,  which  made  the  old  Floren- 
tine artist  put  so  fascinating  and  baffling  a  look  into  the 
face  he  had  studied  so  long,  so  intently,  so  ardently  ? 

Those  who  have  given  the  longest  and  wisest  study  to 
this  masterpiece  see  in  it  still  more  than  all  this.  Walter 
Pater's  critical  rhapsody  over  Mono,  Lisa  is,  in  its  own 
way,  almost  as  famous  as  the  painting  itself,  and  many 
readers  will  like  to  be  reminded  of  it  while  the  picture  is 
before  them  :  — 

"  La  Gioconda  is,  in  the  truest  sense,  Lionardo's  masterpiece, 
the  revealing  instance  of  his  mode   of   thought  and   work.     In 


80  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

suggestiveness,  only  the  Melancholia  of  Diirer  is  comparable  to  it, 
and  no  crude  symbolism  disturbs  the  effect  of  its  subdued  and 
graceful  mystery.  We  all  know  the  face  and  hands  of  the  figure, 
set  in  its  marble  chair,  in  that  cirque  of  fantastic  rocks,  as  in 
some  faint  light  under  sea.  Perhaps  of  all  ancient  pictures 
time  has  chilled  it  least.  As  often  happens  with  works  in  which 
invention  seems  to  reach  its  limit,  there  is  an  element  in  it  given 
to,  not  invented  by,  the  master.  In  that  inestimable  folio  of  draw- 
ings, once  in  the  possession  of  Yasari,  were  certain  designs  by 
Verrocchio,  faces  of  such  impressive  beauty  that  Lionardo  in  his 
boyhood  copied  them  many  times.  It  is  hard  not  to  connect  with 
these  designs  of  the  elder  by-past  master,  as  with  its  germinal 
principle,  the  unfathomable  smile,  always  with  a  touch  of  some- 
thing sinister  in  it,  which  plays  over  all  Lionardo's  work.  Be- 
sides, the  picture  is  a  portrait.  From  childhood  we  see  this 
image  defining  itself  on  the  fabric  of  his  dreams ;  and  but  for 
express  historical  testimony,  we  might  fancy  that  this  was  but 
his  ideal  lady,  embodied  and  beheld  at  last.  What  was  the 
relationship  of  a  living  Florentine  to  this  creature  of  his  thought? 
By  what  strange  affinities  had  she  and  the  dream  grown  thus 
apart,  yet  so  closely  together  ?  Present  from  the  first,  incorpo- 
real in  Lionardo's  thought,  dimly  traced  in  the  designs  of  Ver- 
rocchio, she  is  found  present  at  last  in  II  Gioconde's  house. 

That  there  is  much  of  mere  portraiture  in  the  picture  is  at- 
tested by  the  legend  that  by  artificial  means,  the  presence  of  mimes 
and  flute-players,  that  subtle  expression  was  protracted  on  the 
face.  Again,  was  it  in  four  vears  and  by  renewed  labor  never 
really  completed,  or  in  four  months  and  as  by  stroke  of  magic 
that  the  image  was  projected? 

The  presence  that  thus  so  strangely  rose  beside  the  waters  is 
expressive  of  what  in  the  ways  of  a  thousand  years  man  had 
come  to  desire.  Here  is  the  head  upon  which  all  "  the  ends  of 
the  world  are  come,"  and  the  eyelids  are  a  little  weary.  It  is  a 
beauty  wrought  out  from  within  upon  the  flesh,  the  deposit, 
little  by  little,  cell  by  cell,  of  strange  thoughts  and  fantas- 
tic reveries  and  exquisite  passions.  Set  it  for  a  moment  beside 
one  of  those  white  Greek  goddesses  or  beautiful  women  of  antiq- 
uity, and  how  would  they  be  troubled  by  this  beauty,  into  which 
the  soul  with  all  its  maladies  has  passed  ?  All  the  thoughts  and 
experience  of  the  world  have  etched  and  moulded  there  in  that 
which  they  have  of  power  to  refine  and  make  expressive  the  out- 
ward form,  —  the  animalism  of  Greece,  the  lust  of  Rome,  the 


PORTRAITS  81 

reverie  of  the  Middle  Age  with  its  spiritual  ambition  and  imagi- 
native loves,  the  return  of  the  pagan  world,  the  sins  of  the  Bor- 

gias.  She  is  older  than  the  rocks  among  which  she  sits  ;  like  the 
vampire,  she  has  been  dead  many  times,  and  learned  the  secret 
of  the  grave;  and  has  been  a  diver  in  deep  seas,  and  keeps  their 
fallen  day  about  her;  and  trafficked  for  strange  webs  with 
Eastern  merchants;  and,  as  Leda,  was  the  mother  of  Helen  of 
Troy,  and,  as  Saint  Anne,  the  mother  of  Mary;  and  all  this  has 
been  to  her  but  as  the  sound  of  lyres  and  flutes,  and  lives  only  in 
the  delicacy  with  which  it  has  moulded  the  changing  lineaments 
and  tinged  the  eyelids  and  the  hands.  The  fancy  of  perpetual 
life,  sweeping  together  ten  thousand  experiences,  is  an  old  one; 
and  modern  thought  has  conceived  the  idea  of  humanity  as 
wrought  upon  by,  and  summing  up  in  itself,  all  modes  of  thought 
and  life.  Certainly  Lady  Lisa  might  stand  as  the  embodiment  of 
the  old  fancy,  the  symbol  of  the  modern  idea."  x 


The  portrait  by  Titian  2  on  page  83  is  worth  study  both 
for  its  subject  and  for  its  style.  Compare  it  for  a  mo- 
ment with  the  portraits  on  pages  77,  87,  91,  and  see  how 
individual  it  is  in  its  character.  We  should  feel  quite  sure 
from  its  general  effect  that  it  did  not  come  from  the  same 
artist  as  any  of  these,  just  as  we  feel  sure  that  Henri/  JEs- 
moncl  was  not  written  by  the  author  of  Paradise  Lost  or 
of  Crawford,  or  of  Soldiers  Three.  Not  only  the  subject, 
but  the  painter  too,  is  some  one  with  strong  individuality. 

Let  us  study  the  subject.  He  is  evidently  a  person  of 
consequence ;  satins  and  furs  and  triple  loops  of  gold 
chain  speak  of  magnificence  and  state.  Though  we  have 
here  only  black  and  white  in  fact,  the  impression  given  is 
one  of  rich  colors  and  elegant  textures.  The  pose  has 
something   essentially   commanding    about  it.      A   prince 

1  From  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance 

-  Tiziano  Vecelli  (1477-1570),  accounted  the  greatest  of  the  Venetian 
masters.     This  portrait  is  now  in  the  Berlin  gallery. 


82  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

might  sit  thus  among  his  cabinet  advisers.  The  eyes  are 
searching.  We  feel  sure  that  whatever  the)*  chose  to 
look  at  would  yield  up  its  secrets  to  the  active  brain 
behind  them.  And  those  steady  eyes  have  been  studying 
the  world  for  many  a  long  year,  that  is  evident  ;  for  the 
haughty,  masterful  face  in  which  they  are  set  is  lined  and 
wrinkled  with  years,  the  beard  is  gray,  and  we  feel  certain 
that  the  close  cap  setting  off  the  handsome  head  with  such 
effectiveness  is  serviceable  as  well  as  ornamental,  covering 
a  scantier  growth  of  hair  than  used  to  flourish.  The 
hands  are  interesting  too,  —  perhaps  not  exactly  beautiful 
in  this  little  print  where  we  lose  their  color,  —  but  there 
is  a  deal  of  character  in  them.  They  look  distinctly 
strong  and  supple.  The  square  tips  so  plainly  visible  on 
the  fingers  of  the  right  hand  suggest  skill  and  deftness. 
We  imagine  that  this  wearer  of  satin,  fur,  and  gold  had 
the  use  of  his  hands  as  well  as  his  eyes.  Even  the  left 
hand,  spread  out  on  the  knee  with  an  air  of  meditation 
and  judgment,  has  an  intensely  "  capable  "  look.  It  seems 
to  lie  partly  in  the  hand  itself  and  partly  in  the  intimate 
connection  of  the  hand  with  the  shoulder  and  trunk  and 
commanding  head.  The  portrait  is  quite  remarkable  in 
this  respect  of  making  us  feel  the  vital  unity  of  the  whole 
body.  The  exquisite  hands  of  Mona  Lisa  (page  77) 
attract  the  eye  at  once  by  their  intrinsic  beauty  ;  but, 
while  the  drawing  of  the  arms  is  unimpeachably  correct, 
we  hardly  think  of  the  arms  one  way  or  the  other.  It 
scarcely  occurs  to  us  to  trace  them  from  the  shoulder 
down  to  the  wrist,  or  to  imagine  the  hands  doing  anything 
in  particular.  In  the  portrait  of  this  man  we  instinctively 
trace  the  strong  lines  of  shoulder  and  arm  under  all  their 
fine  trappings,  feeling  that  they  are  essentially  avenues 
down  which   messages   go  from   that    imperious  head  to 


PORTRAIT.  -  Titian. 


84  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

those  accomplished  fingers.     It  is  the  everlasting  miracle 
of  mind's  command  of  matter  that  is  demonstrated  to  us. 

It  is  demonstrated  by  the  magic  of  line.  A  great  artist 
can  show  us  whatever  he  will  with  just  the  right  motion 
of  pencil  or  brush.  We  see,  and  wonder  how  on  earth  he 
does  it.  It  is  another  phase  of  the  same  magic  whose 
power  we  feel  in  words.  Every  syllable  of  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling's Recessional,  for  example,  was  in  the  dictionaries  for 
years,  nay  more,  it  was  on  everybody's  lips  in  common 
speech.  But  Kipling  touched  those  common,  simple  Eng- 
lish words  and  made  them  take  shape  in  five  stanzas  that 
will  live  for  centuries.  And  all  artists  are  brothers.  The 
writer  of  the  Recessional  and  the  painter  of  this  portrait 
belong  to  one  family,  working  in  different  ways  for  the 
inspiration  and  delight  of  all  us  simpler  folk  from  one 
generation  to  another. 

Like  children  watching  a  master  at  his  work,  we  won- 
der why  our  artist  proceeded  just  as  he  did.  Was  that 
table  introduced  in  order  to  give  the  eye  the  pleasure  of  a 
few  straight  lines,  making  variety  from  the  curves  of  feat- 
ures, limbs,  and  elaborate  costume?  Was  it  partly  for 
the  sake  of  an  added  touch  of  color,  and  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  dignified,  elegant  transition  from  the  strong 
lights  on  the  waistcoat  to  the  strong  lights  on  the  hand, 
giving  opportunity  at  the  same  time  for  an  easy  and 
effective  pose  of  the  right  hand  entirely  different  from 
that  of  the  left  ?  Possibly  all  these  surmises  may  be 
right.  At  all  events,  we  can  see  that  these  purposes  are 
admirably  served  by  the  introduction  of  this  simple  detail. 
Hold  the  page  off  at  arm's  length  and  see  how  beautifully 
the  lights  and  darks  in  the  picture  blend  into  each  other 
and  set  each  other  off.  We  can  see,  too,  how  precisely 
right  the  general  proportions  of  the  picture  are.     Surely 


POETEAITS  85 

a  great  man,  such  as  this  one  must  have  been,  ought  to  sit 
high  up  in  the  space.  It  suits  his  character  and  tempera- 
ment better  than  being  lower  down  in  the  same  space  and 
much  better  than  being  placed  alone  in  a  wide,  horizontal 
space. 

Have  we  recognized  the  sitter  ?  The  picture  is  so  fre- 
quently reproduced  that  most  of  us  may  have  known,  at 
once,  that  this  is  Titian's  portrait  of  himself  painted  when 
he  was  over  seventy.  We  can  well  believe  that,  besides 
being  a  masterly  piece  of  art  in  and  for  itself,  it  was  an 
admirable  likeness  of  the  painter,  for  whose  productions 
every  nobleman  in  Europe  was  covetous,  —  the  painter  for 
whom  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  head  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  gladly  stooped  to  pick  up  a  fallen  brush,  saying, 
as  he  laid  it  in  that  right  hand,  "  Titian  is  worthy  to  be 
served  by  Caesar." 


Reproductions  of  pictures  by  old  masters  often  have 
a  dingy,  smoky  look,  as  in  the  case  of  Rubens' 1  portrait 
of  his  wife  and  children.  Something  of  this  dingy  look 
is  unavoidable  in  a  photograph  taken  direct  from  a  canvas 
dulled  bv  time  ;  but,  if  we  realize  that  the  effect  is  that 
of  age,  like  the  yellowing  of  a  book's  worn  pages,  we  can 
forgive  the  blemish,  and  even  find  it  interesting  in  its 
own  way. 

Which  of  these  three  figures  was  first  in  the  thought 
of  the  painter  ?  It  is  easy  to  see.  That  handsome  boy, 
meeting  our  eyes  for  the  moment  with  such  bold  frank- 
ness, yet  ready  to  bury  his  face  in  his  mother's  bosom  the 
next  moment  in  babyish  coquetry,  was  plainly  the  centre 

1  Peter  Paul  Rubens  (1577-1040),  the  leading  Flemish  artist  of  the 
seventeenth  century.     This  portrait  group  is  now  in  the  Louvre. 


SQ  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

of  the  group  in  his  artist  father's  eyes.  A  son  and  heir 
is  traditionally  of  much  more  importance  than  the  woman- 
kind of  a  family,  and  Rubens  in  his  day  felt  about  the 
matter  just  as  other  European  gentlemen  felt.  Besides, 
he  was  always  painting  his  blooming  young  wife  in  one 
guise  or  another,  and  could  easily  afford  to  make  •  her 
temporarily  a  minor  figure.  And  is  it  not  beautifully 
managed  —  this  emphasis  on  the  bright-eyed  youngster  in 
his  mother's  lap  ?  See  how  the  mother  clasps  him  in  her 
arms  and  gazes  admiringly  at  him  ;  see  how  the  gentle 
little  sister  comes  bringing  an  apronful  of  treasures  for 
him.  The  large,  flowing  curve  on  the  right  side,  made 
by  the  outline  of  the  mother's  neck,  shoulder,  and  sweep- 
ing gown,  and  the  curve  on  the  other  side  just  hinted  at 
in  the  outline  of  the  sister's  head  drapery,  surround  and 
infold  the  baby  boy  as  the  petals  of  a  flower  enclose  the 
heart  of  it.  The  painter  did  two  things  at  once  when  he 
thus  planned  the  relative  positions  of  the  sitters  in  his 
family  group.  He  made  every  one  look  first  and  fore- 
most at  the  heir  of  whom  he  was  so  proud,  and  he  made 
the  principal  lines  in  his  composition  so  beautiful  that 
people  still  love  to  pore  over  the  picture,  whether  they 
care  anything  about  his  wife  and  children  or  not. 

Until  we  study  the  print  quite  carefully,  we  are  not 
likely  to  notice  that  the  three  heads  make  an  oblique 
line  across  the  picture.  When  we  do  first  notice  it,  we 
wonder,  perhaps,  how  this  rather  awkward  arrangement 
can  look  so  well.  We  know  that  when  an  ordinary  pho- 
tographer poses  three  people  in  a  flight-of-stairs  fashion, 
the  effect  —  though  it  may  be  "taking"  at  first  sight  — 
soon  seems  foolish  and  tiresome.  But  this  grouping  of 
Rubens  does  not  grow  tiresome  ;  it  is  always  a  pleasure 
to  the  eye.     For  one  thing,  the  heads  are  placed  at  un- 


RUBENS'    SECOND    WIFE    WITH    CHILDREN.  -Ei-rkhs. 


88  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

equal  distances  from  each  other,  not  at  regular  intervals 
like  steps.  The  boy's  position  in  his  mother's  lap  natu- 
rally brings  him  nearer  to  her  than  to  the  sister,  and, 
besides,  her  head  is  bent  a  little  to  meet  him.  Then, 
again,  does  not  that  column  or  tree  trunk,  rising  between 
the  heads  of  the  boy  and  the  girl,  have  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  softening  the  otherwise  stiff  effect  of  the  diagonal, 
leading  the  eye  and  the  thought  up  away  from  the  slant- 
ing line  ? 

The  substantial  comeliness  of  the  young  matron  is 
something  very  pleasant  in  its  way.  She  was  evidently 
neither  an  angel  nor  a  club  president,  but 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

Rubens  thought  the  plump  curve  of  her  shoulder  lovely, 
and  quite  right  he  was.  We  are  much  obliged  to  him 
for  calling  our  attention  to  it  by  echoing  its  outline  just 
above,  in  the  hat  brim  with  the  drooping  feather.  Her 
gown,  too,  with  its  big  double  sleeves  and  voluminous 
skirts,  was  evidently  a  joy  to  the  painter.  The  play  of 
light  and  shade  on  long  curving  folds  of  woven  stuffs, 
working  all  sorts  of  transformations  in  their  color  and 
sheen,  is  something  as  delicious  to  such  an  artist's  eyes 
as  the  flavor  of  meats  and  drinks  to  his  palate.  If  the 
graceful  disorder  of  Madame  Helen's  rjetticoats  seems  at 
first  sight  (in  the  absence  of  color)  to  have  insufficient 
reason  for  being,  study  the  delicate  changes  from  light 
to  dark,  and  back  to  light  again,  which  are  caused  by  the 
looping  and  drooping  folds,  and  imagine  how  much  more 
beautiful  the  rich  stuff  of  the  gown  is,  thus  arranged, 
than  it  would  be  if  it  hung  in  one  straight,  unbroken 
surface. 


PORTRAITS  89 

With  all  the  rest,  see  how  much  the  heavy,  carved  chair 
does  for  the  beauty  of  the  whole  picture.  It  gives  us  a 
few  strong,  straight  lines  to  balance  the  delicate  curves 
of  faces  and  hair  and  drapery,  making  us  enjoy  the  look 
of  dimpled  flesh  and  flowing  robes  a  great  deal  inure 
through  their  contrast  with  what  is  severe  and  rigid. 
Of  course  the  painter  could  have  represented  the  mother 
seated  without  actually  showing  us  the  chair  itself,  but 
in  that  case  we  should  have  lost  this  fine  contrast  of  lines 
and  surfaces.  Even  in  the  print  we  can  see  how  the 
dark,  deep  color  of  the  chair  sets  off  the  airier  colors  of 
the  mother's  gown. 


Some  of  the  most  interesting  portraits  are  not  paint- 
ings at  all.  For  instance,  that  of  the  Young  Man,  Musing, 
on  page  91,  by  Rembrandt,  was  originally  etched  on  a 
copper  plate.1 

Nobody  knows  now,  after  two  hundred  and  sixty  years, 
who  this  moody  young  man  may  have  been,  but  when  we 
are  once  familiar  with  his  portrait  we  never  forget  it. 
Although  he  looks  at  us,  we  can  see  perfectly  well  that 
he  is  not  thinking  about  us  at  all.  He  is  puzzling  and 
frowning  over  affairs  of  his  own.  Note  the  narrowed 
eyes,  the  vertical  wrinkles  between  the  brows,  the  com- 
pressed lips,  the  downward  settling  of  the  neck  inside 
the  fur  collar  and  the  voluminous  muffler.  One  could 
make   up  a  hundred  theories  as  to  the  reasons  for  his 

1  Chapter  XI,  pages  240-243,  gives  notes  on  the  processes  involved  in 
etching,  to  which  readers  may  like  to  refer.  The  print  there  is  reproduced 
by  permission  of  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  from  a  proof  of  the 
original  plate.  Something  is  unavoidably  lost  in  the  reproduction,  still  it 
gives  an  idea  of  the  style  and  general  effect  of  the  famous  Dutch  artist's 
work. 


90  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

rather  sulky  attitude  and  the  smouldering  gleam  in  his 
eyes,  but  all  we  really  know  about  him  is  that  the  great 
Rembrandt  van  Ryn  thought  him  picturesque  enough  to 
be  worth  immortalizing,  clothes  and  all. 

Those  of  us  who  have  watched  a  landscape  slowly 
shape  itself  into  hill  and  hollow,  projection  and  depres- 
sion, under  a  sunrise  sky,  will  not  soon  forget  what  magic 
the  sun  worked  there.  A  neighboring  hillside,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  soft  half-light  before  dawn,  looked  like  an 
evenly  rounded  surface,  all  of  nearly  the  same  color  ;  but, 
once  the  sun  came  up,  variations  of  light  and  shade  began 
to  appear  on  this  same  hillside,  revealing  myriad  varia- 
tions of  its  roundness.  Every  contrast  of  sunshiny  and 
shadowed  spaces  betrayed  something  of  the  form  of  the 
hill,  —  here  a  deep  hollow,  not  yet  lighted  but  full  of  the 
lingering  dusk  of  night,  there  a  prominent  ridge  reach- 
ing out  to  catch  the  glow  with  brilliant  emphasis,  and 
trailing  a  long  veil  of  sweeping  shadow  behind  it  on  the 
side  away  from  the  sun.  Each  sunbeam  was  like  a  magic 
touch,  waking  the  hillside  into  life  and  character  after 
the  vague,  formless  void  of  the  night. 

It  is  a  secret  that  every  artist  knows,  and  into  which 
some  artists  are  never  tired  of  studying.  The  one  who 
signed  this  picture  of  the  Young  Man,  Musing  took  end- 
less delight  in  watching  the  play  of  light  and  shade, 
not  only  over  the  landscape,  but  over  the  human  face  and 
figure.  In  this  particular  instance  he  seems  to  have  lin- 
gered with  keen  appreciation  over  the  fashion  in  which 
light  and  shade  told  their  tale  of  the  moody  young  person 
in  the  fur-trimmed  coat. 

See,  for  one  thing,  how  boldly  the  strong,  decided  nose 
stands  out  from  the  rest  of  the  face.  Its  own  shadow, 
thrown   on  the   right  cheek,   contrasted  with  the  strong 


A    YOUNG   MAN,    MUSING.  —  Rembrandt. 


92  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

light  on  the  other  side,  makes  its  prominence  unmistaka- 
ble.1 See  how  the  shadows  in  the  corners  of  the  eyes 
suggest  the  forward  projection  of  the  brows  above,  and 
how  the  shadows  below  the  under  lip  indicate  the  concave 
curve  of  the  chin.  Do  not  the  dusky  spaces  about  the 
left  ear  and  the  back  of  the  neck  show  that  the  hair  is  in 
loose  locks  standing  out  a  little  from  the  head  rather  than 
plastered  tight  against  the  scalp  ?  Even  the  three  nar- 
row vertical  shadows  between  the  eyebrows  have  their 
tale  to  tell  ;  they  must  be  grooves  in  the  flesh,  that  is  to 
say,  they  must  be  furrowed  spaces  or  wrinkles.  It  is  the 
sun  that  betrays  them. 

The  sunlight  can  play  a  much  livelier  game  with  that 
rakish  cap  and  its  reversed  curves  than  with  a  modern 
gentleman's  plain  cylinder  of  polished  silk.  Just  notice 
how  the  variations  of  light  and  shade  on  its  surface  tell 
us  the  whole  story  of  its  varying  curves,  the  places  where 
it  is  hollowed  in,  the  places  where  it  stands  out  full  and 
round,  the  places  where  its  corded  edge  lies  in  narrow, 
parallel  ridges  and  grooves. 

When  we  look  at  the  coat  and  the  neckcloth,  we  see 
they  too  were  studied  with  this  same  thought  in  mind,  — 
the  way  in  which  light  and  shade  make  them  real  to  the 
observer's  eye.  We  see  the  hollows  where  the  sunlight  is 
cut  >ff,  and  they  tell  us  of  folds  in  the  loose  coat  outlin- 
ing the  form  within.  The  delicate,  shallow  pencillings  of 
shadow  in  the  neckcloth  suggest  the  stringy  folds  of  a 
soft  silken  stuff.  And  note  how  cleverly  the  artist 
showed  just  enough  of  the  radiating  effect  of  the  shadows 

1  There  is  a  tradition  that  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  when  sitting 
for  her  own  portrait,  painted  by  an  artist  of  distinction,  failed  to  see  the 
reason  of  a  shadow  on  the  cheek  similar  to  this,  and  peremptorily  for- 
bade the  painter  to  represent  her  face  as  disfigured  by  any  such  "dis- 
coloration "  ! 


PORTRAITS  93 

among  the  course  hairs  of  the  fur  to  make  the  identity  of 
the  material  unmistakable,  while  yet  he  gracefully  de- 
clined the  futile  task  of  trying  to  draw  every  separate 
shadow. 

See  again,  in  the  contrast  between  the  background  and 
the  drapery  over  the  right  arm,  how  a  difference  in  the 
lighting  of  the  two  grays  makes  one  stand  out  clear  and 
clean  from  the  other. 

Did  Rembrandt  put  in  that  scrawly  suggestion  of  an 
open  book  for  the  sake  of  making  the  picture  space  better 
balanced  (the  man  himself,  we  see,  is  away  over  in  one 
corner),  the  downward  sloping  diagonal  of  book  and  back- 
ground making  an  effective  contrast  with  the  opposite 
sloping  diagonals  of  shoulder  and  fur  collar?  And  was 
there  possibly  another  idea  also  in  the  suggestion  of  the 
book,  giving  us  the  notion  of  a  scholarly  bent  in  the  medi- 
tative young  man  ?  Perhaps  both  thoughts  were  in  the 
artist's  mind,  perhaps  neither  purpose  really  crystallized 
into  conscious  thought,  —  the  artist  etching  in  that  back- 
ground with  an  unconscious  instinct  of  just  the  right 
thing  to  do,  his  quaint  signature  up  in  the  corner  giving 
the  final  touch  of  completeness  to  the  whole. 


CHAPTER    VII 

STUDIES   OF   LIFE   AND   CHARACTER 

r  I  ^ H E  greatest  work  in  portraiture  necessarily  involves 
deep  study  of  human  nature  :  but.  besides  the  life 
portraits  of  distinguished  historic  personages  and  other 
real  people,  we  rind  artists  drawing  and  painting  a  great 
many  other  pictures  which  specially  interest  us  from  the 
standpoint  of  character  study. 

In  order  to  enjoy  such  pictures  thoroughly,  one  needs 
to  remember  that  artists  choose  subjects  for  the  pictu- 
resque or  decorative  effectiveness  with  which  they  can  be 
worked  out  rather  than  for  their  moral  perfection. 
Dramatists  and  novelists  have  always  done  the  same 
thing.  We  enjoy  Shakespeare's  portrayal  of  Iago  and 
Lear.  Lady  Macbeth  and  Queen  Katharine,  no  less  than 
that  of  characters  in  themselves  serene  and  admirable 
and  enviable,  though  Shakespeare's  presentation  of  them 
makes  us  feel  with  added  force  the  blackness  of  sin  and 
the  awfulness  of  sorrow.  We  need  sometimes  to  remind 
ourselves,  when  looking  at  pictures,  that  artists  are  no 
more  bound  than  authors  to  show  us  simply  the  agreeable 
and  "pretty"  aspects  of  things. 

■•  Who  ne'er  his  bread  in  sorrow  ate. 

Who  ne'er  the  mournful  midnight  hours 
Weeping  upon  his  bed  hath  sate.  — 

He  knows  ye  not.  Ye  Heavenly  Powers." 
94 


STUDIES   OF    LIFE    AND   CHARACTER  95 

Putting  out  of  account  the  frankly  coarse  and  brutal 
pictures  which  coarse  and  brutal  men  sometimes  make 
from  sheer,  perverse  love  of  ugliness  and  uncleanliness,  it 
is  safe  to  assume  that  every  picture  which  is  artistically 
good  is  worth  our  study,  whether  it  strikes  us  at  the  first 
glance  as  attractive  or  the  contrary. 


Regnault's  Salome1  (page  97)  takes  for  its  subject 
the  daughter  of  Herodias,  who  danced  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  Judsean  king,  and,  at  her  mother's  instiga- 
tion, asked  for  John  the  Baptist's  head  in  payment  (Mark 
vi.  17-28). 

We  can  see  at  a  glance  that  the  original  painting  must 
be  gorgeous  with  color.  This  color  can  be  imagined  as 
one  examines  the  black-and-white  print,  and  the  experi- 
ment will  be  well  worth  while  as  a  bit  of  play  and  train- 
ing for  the  imagination. 

The  general  impression  we  get  from  it  is  that  of  bar- 
baric, oriental  luxury.  The  tangle  of  Salome's  abundant, 
glossy  hair,  the  gleam  of  bare  flesh  through  her  shimmer- 
ing gauzy  draperies  (that  shimmering,  silken,  transparent 
stuff  is  wonderfully  well  represented),  the  glint  of  metal 
in  the  heavy  basin  or  "charger,"  in  the  sheath  of  the 
knife  and  in  the  girl's  bracelets,  the  elaborate  decoration 
of  the  piece  of  furniture  on  which  the  dancer  rests,  the 
suggestion  of  sensuous  comfort  in  the  shaggy  furs  upon 
the  floor,  —  all  these  give  one  a  feeling  of  being  close  to 
the  land  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 

Notice    the    perfect    animal    health    and    vigor    of    the 

1  Alexandre  George  Henri  Regnault  was  a  French  painter,  mainly  of  his- 
torical subjects,  born  in  1843;  he  died  in  1871.  The  model  used  for  this 
picture  is  said  to  have  been  a  Spanish  girl. 


96  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

seated  figure.  The  attitude  has  no  look  of  weariness. 
We  feel  that  it  was  assumed,  not  from  exhaustion,  but 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  physical  pleasure  of  a  change 
from  dancing.  That  vigorous  young  body  could  not  be 
easily  tired.  The  slipping  of  the-  drapery  from  the 
shoulder,  showing  the  union  of  the  arm  with  the  chest, 
is  suggestive  of  a  firmly  constructed  skeleton  under  the 
glowing  flesh,  of  reserve  strength  like  that  in  the  strong, 
supple  joints  of  a  beast  of  prey.  The  legs  and  feet  are 
full  of  life ;  the  feet  especially  look  ready  to  go  on  with 
the  dancing  at  a  moment's  notice. 

The  heavy  mass  of  the  hair,  by  its  luxuriance  and  un- 
conventional tangle,  gives  one  the  same  sort  of  impression 
as  that  obtained  from  a  tropical  forest  or  a  swamp  where 
vegetation  runs  riot.  The  eyes,  the  lips,  and  the  teeth 
add  gleams  of  vivid  hue  and  color,  like  birds  or  flowers  in 
the  shadow  of  the  tree  masses.  But  notice  how  little 
there  is  in  the  face  suggestive  of  other  than  an  animal 
nature.  The  parted  lips  show  a  feeling  of  satisfaction,  — 
a  sense  of  pleasure  in  the  exercise  just  abandoned,  a  sense 
of  anticipated  pleasure  too  in  the  coming  reward  ;  but 
there  is  no  more  soul  in  them  than  in  the  parted  lips  of 
a  dog  that  comes  back  to  his  master  after  performing 
some  task,  to  receive  a  luscious  bone.  The  leopard  skin 
under  the  girl's  feet,  while  a  perfectly  natural  part  of  the 
accessories  of  the  scene,  not  dragged  in  for  the  sake  of 
symbolism,  gives  a  clever  touch  of  suggested  emphasis  to 
the  portrayal  of  lfer  own  nature.  You  feel  that  she  is 
rather  closely  related  to  the  creatures  of  the  jungle. 

Or,  if  this  Salome  must  be  measured  with  men  and 
women  rather  than  against  leopards  and  such  graceful, 
strong-limbed  beasts,  she  is  to  be  counted  a  grown-up 
woman  with  a  brain  arrested  in  its  development.      There 


SALOME.  —  Regnault. 


h 


98  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

is  something  not  childlike  but  childish  in  that  irrespon- 
sible laugh  of  her  eyes  and  her  lips.  It  is  the  look  of 
one  who  is  morally  "lacking."  The  easy,  matter-of-fact 
way  in  which  she  holds  the  knife  and  platter  that  wait 
for  the  prophet's  head  shows  that  she  was  incapable  of 
taking  in  the  reality  of  what  she  did.  The  mother  who 
instigated  her  to  ask  for  the  ghastly  reward  did  so  delib- 
erately. "  Hell  hath  no  fury  like  a  woman  scorned,"  or 
a  woman  who  has  been  held  up  to  public  scorn.  Hero- 
dias  knew  very  Avell  what  she  was  about.  But  this  splen- 
did savage  with  the  tropical  hair  and  eyes  ?  She  danced 
a  prophet  to  his  death  with  smiling  unconcern. 

This  feeling  which  one  has,  in  looking  on  the  picture, 
of  the  hopeless  unreachableness  of  the  girl's  soul,  the  use- 
lessness  of  effort  to  make  her  see  what  she  was  doing,  is 
unobtrusively  strengthened  by  the  very  plan  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  drawing.  Notice  that,  as  you  look  at  the 
picture,  }rou  see  but  a  little  way  into  the  metal  basin 
which  Salome  holds.  You  see  it  (and  were  intended  to 
see  it)  as  if  your  eyes  were  only  a  little  above  the  level 
of  the  edge  of  the  basin  as  it  rests  in  her  lap  ;  that  is  to 
say,  you  see  Salome  as  if  you  were  on  your  knees  before 
her,  looking  up.      She  is  above,  dominant. 

It  is  often  interesting  to  notice  little  points  like  this 
about  a  picture.  Artists  plan  these  details  with  the 
greatest  care. 

A  half-tone  reproduction  of  this  photograph  destroys 
some  of  its  fine  effects  of  detail  ;  still,  much  remains 
accessible  to  the  observer.  The  effects  of  the  different 
kinds  of  surfaces  and  textures  were  admirably  brought 
out  by  the  artist.  The  metallic  basin  evidently  is  metal- 
lic, not  wooden.  The  glint  of  the  light  on  its  burnished 
surfaces    is   unmistakable.      It    actually  looks   hard   and 


STUDIES  OF    LIFE    AND   CHARACTER  99 

polished.  By  contrast  with  it  both  the  flesh  and  the 
drapery  over  it  arc  heightened  in  effect.  The  firm  flesh 
gains  in  delicacy  by  contrast  with  the  unyielding  metal; 
the  curves  of  the  legs  look  rounder  by  contrast  with  the 
thin,  flat  margin  of  the  basin  ;  the  transparent  gauzy 
skirt  looks  all  the  more  filmy  by  contrast  with  the  hard 
lines  of  the  basin  and  the  chest  on  one  side,  and  with  the 
shaggy  heaviness  of  the  fur  rug  on  the  other  side.  The 
depth  of  color  in  the  mass  of  curling  hair  is  made  doubly 
effective  by  relief  against  the  lighter  mass  of  the  silken 
curtain  behind  the  seated  figure. 


In  striking  contrast  to  Regnault's  barbaric  beauty  with 
her  knife  and  charger  are  the  school-girls  of  Eugen  Blaas1 
in  Punch  and  Judy  at  the  Convent.  Here  the  atmosphere 
is  not  that  of  lawlessness,  but  of  the  strictest  conven- 
tionality, both  secular  and  spiritual.  The  scene  is  within 
the  charmed  precincts  of  a  convent  where  young  girls  are 
taken  as  boarding  pupils,  taught  by  nuns  of  the  order  con- 
trolling the  institution.  It  is  recreation  day.  Properly  ac- 
credited visitors  are  allowed  to  enter  the  adjoining  room 
and  talk  with  the  pupils  in  a  subdued  and  decorous  fashion 
through  ornamental  gratings  or  screens  set  in  the  partition 
wall,  —  a  sort  of  spiritually  antiseptic  gauze,  to  prevent 
the  bacilli  of  worldly  ideas  from  drifting  into  young  souls 
and  finding  lodgment  there  !  For  the  entertainment  of 
the  other  girls,  who  have  no  visitors,  a  Punch-and-Judy 
show  has  been  brought  in.  Probably,  in  the  minds  of 
the  sedate  sisters,  the  little  drama  of  Punch  and  his 
wife  seems  sufficiently  unlike  real  life  to  be  quite  safe  in 
its  effect  on  impressionable  girlish  minds. 

1  An  Austrian  artist  of  the  present  generation. 


100  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

The  most  evident  value  of  the  picture  lies  in  its  show- 
ing so  many  different  kinds  of  girls  in  their  teens.  Almost 
every  variety  of  the  school-girl  type  is  here,  and  to  any 
one  who  feels  the  charm  of  just  this  phase  of  life  —  the 
half-way  stage  between  child  and  woman — the  picture 
is  well  worth  some  detailed  study.  Look  at  the  separate 
figures  and  see  what  differences  are  to  be  observed  in 
their  dispositions  and  temperaments.  Notice,  for  ex- 
ample, the  farther  girl  in  the  front  row  of  chairs,  the 
one  who  leans  far  forward  in  her  close  attention  to  the 
marionettes.  She  is  a  rather  slow,  matter-of-fact  girl, 
not  particularly  brilliant  at  her  lessons,  often  deficient 
in  imagination,  yet  now  and  then  showing  a  surprising 
amount  of  clear,  level-headed  common  sense  in  questions 
of  practical  judgment. 

Her  dark-eyed  neighbor,  with  the  pretty  head  tilted  to 
one  side  like  a  flower,  is  much  more  emotional,  and  takes 
to  innocent  little  coquetries  as  naturally  as  to  eating  and 
sleeping.  She  can  (and  does)  cry  easily,  but  her  tears 
are  rather  becoming  than  otherwise.  Her  nose  and  eyes 
never  grow  red  and  swollen  in  the  process.  As  she  grows 
up,  men  will  adore  her ;  but  women  may  be  a  little  severe 
with  her. 

The  serious  maiden  in  the  seat  nearest  us  is  a  lovely  bit 
of  }routhful  life.  We  have  all  seen  girls  like  her.  She  is 
just  at  the  age  when  life  begins  to  take  on  new  beauty 
and  new  solemnity  at  once ;  new  worlds  of  spiritual  ex- 
perience open  hazily  before  her  wondering  eyes,  like  far- 
off  horizons  seen  for  a  moment  in  magnificent  perspective 
from  a  misty  mountain  top,  cut  off  from  view  the  next 
minute  by  enveloping  clouds  of  near-by  circumstance  full 
of  absorbing  demands.  She  lives  half  in  the  simple  daily 
round   of    school-room   tasks   and   duties,  half    in  untold 


2; 

> 

o 
o 

w 


to 

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<1 


to 


102  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

dreams.  They  may  be  dreams  of  religious  devotion  ;  they 
may  be  dreams  of  romantic  love.  The  beautiful  lines  in 
the  head  and  neck  of  this  particular  figure  in  Blaas' 
picture  are  most  pleasant  to  look  at. 

The  two  girls  in  the  seats  just  behind  have  quite  for- 
gotten their  manners.  Theirs  is  a  dreadful  indecorum 
from  the  standpoint  of  convent  precepts.  To  laugh  aloud, 
to  point  with  outstretched  forefinger,  to  twist  one's  ankles 
with  such  recklessness  between  the  rounds  of  one's  chair 
in  the  delirium  of  giggling  —  what  a  sin  !  The  demure 
prize  scholar  who  sits  next  turns  to  warn  them  that  Sister 
Angelique  is  frowning  from  her  post  over  by  the  visitors' 
window.  It  is  useless  ;  they  can  take  no  hints.  All  the 
principles  of  drawing-room  etiquette  have  vanished  from 
their  consciousness  as  completely  as  last  year's  geography 
lessons.  Sister  Seraphine  is  actually  obliged  to  lay  her 
cool,  dry  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the  nearest  ne'er-do- 
weel  to  recall  the  erring  pair  to  a  sense  of  the  proprieties. 
Will  they  be  put  en  pSnitence  for  their  transgressions  ? 
Maybe;  but  even  if  they  spend  the  next  three  recreation 
hours  over  irregular  verbs,  the  memory  of  this  gay,  good 
time  will  pull  them  cheerfully  through  the  ordeal.  They 
had  their  fun.  They  are  not  the  girls  to  grudge  paying 
for  it. 

The  prim  little  damsel  with  the  straight  back,*  just 
beyond  the  culprits,  answering  her  elegant  mother's 
inquiries  about  her  progress,  has  certainly  a  creditable 
report  to  offer.  No  girl  who  carried  her  shoulders  like 
that  would  ever  get  bad  marks  for  misbehavior.  In  fact, 
if  the  discipline  of  the  house  depended  on  that  plump, 
substantial  sister  standing  near,  nobody  would  ever  re- 
ceive any  bad  marks.  She  is  not  above  enjoying  the 
Punch-and-Judy    show   herself,    this    placid   image    of   a 


STUDIES   OF   LIFE   AM)   CHARACTER  103 

woman;  even  if  the  quaint  little  drama  were  not  thus 
absorbing  her  attention,  she  would  not  for  a  moment  be 
comparable  as  chaperone  with  the  vigilant  sister  who 
stands  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  room  intent  on  two 
responsibilities  at  onee. 

The  two  wise  senior  pupils,  sitting  in  rather  stately 
reserve  at  the  back  of  the  room,  are  only  politely  tolerant 
of  the  puppet  show.  They  evidently  feel  that  the  affair 
is  just  a  little  beneath  their  dignity.  The  excpiisite 
daintiness  of  their  girlish  gowns  is  well  matched  by  the 
grave  courtesy  with  which  they  refrain  from  casting  the 
least  fraction  of  a  glance  towards  the  visitors'  gratings. 
The  dark-haired  one  has  force  of  character  in  her  face? 
She  has  less  beauty  than  some  of  her  mates,  but  she  will 
be  a  woman  of  decision  and  influence.  She  will  do  some 
genuine  thinking  before  she  is  forty. 

The  picture  gives  one  a  very  strong  sense  of  the  shel- 
tered remoteness  of  these  flower-like  figures  from  the  con- 
flicts and  perplexities  of  common  work-a-day  life  outside 
the  sheltering  convent  walls. 

Though  the  greatest  interest  of  this  picture  lies  in  its 
character  study,  it  has  many  other  excellences  of  other 
kinds.  For  instance,  the  contrasts  of  lights  and  darks 
are  beautiful.  If  we  hold  the  picture  far  enough  away 
to  lose  all  detail  in  the  figures,  and  get  simply  an  impres- 
sion of  masses  of  light  and  masses  of  dark,  we  find  the 
effect  is  very  pleasant  to  the  eye.  This  did  not  happen 
accidentally.  The  artist  composed  his  groups  in  such  a 
way  as  to  give  variety  and  contrast  while  avoiding  a 
spotty,  patch-work  effect.  If  again  we  bring  the  picture 
nearer,  so  as  to  observe  details  once  more,  we  see  how  the 
airy  colors  and  textures  of  the  school-girls'  gowns  are  at 
once  set  off  and  relieved  by  the  severe,  strong  masses  of 


104  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

darker  color  in  the  robes  of  the  nuns,  in  the  hanging' 
draperies  under  Punch  and  Judy,  and  in  the  deep  shadows 
of  the  outer  room  as  seen  through  the  gratings. 

Again,  there  is  (at  least,  for  the  most  part)  a  nice  rela- 
tion of  lines  to  each  other.  Even  if  we  do  not  stop  to 
analyze  this  effect,  we  feel  that  the  pretty  curves  of  the 
girlish  figures  and  faces  are  some  way  more  effective 
in  this  room,  where  the  main  architectural  lines  are  so 
strong,  straight,  and  imposing,  and  where  the  grown-up 
people  are  so  heavily  statuesque.  Girlish  curves  alone, 
indefinitely  multiplied,  would  become  insipid.  Vigorous, 
direct,  straight  lines  entering  judiciously  into  the  compo- 
sition keep  it  energetic  in  character. 


George  Eliot  says,  in  Adam  Bede  :  — 

"  All  honor  and  i-everence  to  the  divine  beauty  of  form!  Let 
us  cultivate  it  to  the  utmost  in  men,  women,  and  children  —  in 
our  gardens  and  in  our  houses;  but  let  us  love  that  other  beauty 
too,  which  lies  in  no  secret  of  proportion,  but  in  the  secret  of 
deep,  human  sympathy.  Paint  us  an  angel,  if  you  can,  with  a 
floating  violet  robe,  and  a  face  paled  by  the  celestial  light ;  paint 
us  yet  oftener  a  Madonna,  turning  her  mild  face  upward,  and 
opening  her  arms  to  welcome  the  divine  glory;  but  do  not  impose 
on  us  any  aesthetic  rules  which  shall  banish  from  the  region  of 
Art  those  old  women  scraping  carrots  with  their  work-worn 
hands,  those  heavy  clowns  taking  holiday  in  a  dingy  pot-house,  — 
whose  rounded  backs  and  stupid,  weather-beaten  faces  have  bent 
over  the  spade  and  done  the  rough  work  of  the  world  —  those 
homes  with  their  tin  pans,  their  brown  pitchers,  their  rough 
curs,  and  their  clusters  of  onions.  In  this  world  there  are  so 
many  of  these  common,  coarse  people  who  have  no  picturesque 
sentimental  wretchedness!  It  is  so  needful  we  should  remember 
their  existence,  else  we  may  happen  to  leave  them  quite  out  of 
our  religion  and  philosophy,  and  frame  lofty  theories  which  only 
fit  a  world  of  extremes.  Therefore  let  Art  always  remind  us  of 
them;  therefore  let  us  always  have  men  ready  to  give  the  loving 


STUDIES   OF    LIFE   AND   CHARACTER  105 

pains  of  a  life  to  the  faithful  representation  of  commonplace 
things  —  men  who  see  beauty  in  these  commonplace  things,  and 
delight  in  showing  how  kindly  the  light  of  heaven  falls  on 
them." 

Nicholas  Maas,1  in  his  picture  called  The  Spinner,  gives 
us  just  this  sort  of  homely  beauty.  While  the  soft  con- 
trasts of  light  and  shade  are  lovely  in  themselves  (look 
at  the  page  from  such  a  distance  as  to  lose  its  details, 
and  you  find  the  opposition  of  light  and  dark  spaces 
is  so  managed  as  to  make  a  serene  sort  of  harmony,  like 
certain  chords  in  music),  the  main  impression  of  the 
picture  is  upon  the  heart  and  the  sympathetic  imagina- 
tion even  more  than  on  the  aesthetic  sense. 

This  old  housewife  evidently  belongs  to  a  humble 
rank  in  life.  The  bare-,  rough  walls  stand  for  a  very 
simple,  primitive  sort  of  home  life.  Yet  the  suggestion 
of  self -respectful  comfort  is  complete.  The  roof  over 
the  head  of  that  tidy,  capable  old  woman  is  unquestion- 
ably a  whole  roof,  not  a  leaky  one.  She  sits  near  a 
great  fireplace  ;  the  tongs,  besides  making  a  pleasant 
variety  in  the  detail  of  lines,  and  giving  a  gleam  of 
metallic  surface  to  contrast  with  all  the  wood  and  plas- 
ter, remind  one  of  the  cheerful  comfort  of  a  blaze  on 
the  hearth.  The  earthen  pot  in  the  corner  is  just  where 
it  is  for  many  reasons  at  once  :  its  robust  curves  break 
the  monotonous,  upright  surface  of  the  wall  and  lessen 
the  severity  of  the  three  tall,  parallel,  vertical  lines 
along  the  right-hand  edge  of  the  composition ;  again, 
the  texture  of  the  bit  of  quaint,  rude  pottery  (and,  in 
the  original,  its  color)  adds  to  the  interest  ;  besides  all 
this,  the   homely  earthen   pot   is   full    of   suggestions  of 

1  A  Dutch  painter  whose  life    (1032-1093)  was  spent  mainly  in  the 
Netherlands. 


10(3  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

good  things  to  eat  and  drink,  —  of  .sweet  milk,  or  sa- 
vory stew,  or  toothsome  fried  cakes  set  away  on  a  high 
shelf. 

The  pose  of  the  thrifty  old  mother  herself  is  eloquent 
of  homely  industry.  The  seamed  and  wrinkled  face  is 
that  of  one  whose  whole  life  has  been  a  ceaseless  round 
of  patiently  borne  responsibilities.  The  rough  hands 
have  been  used  to  constant,  unsparing  labor.  They  are 
a  little  stiffened  now  with  age  and  rheumatism,  yet  not 
so  much  as  to  forget  their  former  skill.  There  is  no 
need  for  any  officiously  cleft  granddaughter  to  offer  help 
in  this  momentary  emergency- — not  at  all.  Give  her 
time,  and  those  callous  fingers  that  have  handled  flax 
so  many  long  years  will  prove  that  they  have  not  for- 
gotten their  accustomed  cunning.  The  serious  intent- 
ness  of  the  woman's  face  as  she  bends  over  the  task  is 
exquisitely  true  to  life.  The  coarse  gown  and  apron  and 
kerchief,  the  close  cap  protecting  the  temples  where 
once  abundant  hair  now  grows  thinly,  these  all  have  a 
simple  dignity  of  their  own.  She  never  had  high-flying 
ambitions,  —  this  good  soul  at  the  linen  wheel,  —  but 
she  has  lived  with  self-forgetful  faithfulness  up  to  such 
duties  as  were  plain  before  her ;  and  her  children,  if  they 
are  anyway  worthy  of  their  descent,  rise  up  and  call 
her  blessed. 

Look  once  more  at  the  picture  as  a  composition,  and 
see  how  perfectly  it  was  planned.  The  tall  distaff  at 
one  end  of  the  flax  wheel,  with  its  own  soft  shadow 
behind  it,  helps  break  what  would  otherwise  be  a  glar- 
ing triangle  of  light  on  the  wall,  and  leads  the  eye 
easily  across  from  the  dark  mass  of  the  spinner's  left 
shoulder  to  the  shadows  in  the  edge  of  the  fireplace. 
Notice,  (in   the  other    hand,  how  the    light    on    the    legs 


THE   SPINNER.  — Maas. 


108  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

and  the  inner  rim  of  the  wheel  keeps  the  shadows  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  picture  from  being  too  dense.  The 
deep  shadows  in  the  lower  left  corner  of  the  picture  seem 
transparent,  for  all  their  depth  ;  this  is  partly  because 
the  form  thrust  into  the  shadows  (a  circle  with  inner 
radii)  is  a  form  particularly  easy  for  the  imagination  to 
trace.  We  think  we  see  even  more  than  we  actually  do 
see  in  that  dim  corner. 

The  hint  given  of   the  back  of   the  spinner's  chair  is 
a  very  slight   hint,  but   it   serves  several   purposes.     In 
the  -first   place,  it   gives  satisfactory  evidence  as  to  the 
old  woman's  real   pose.     Lacking  it,  we  should  suppose 
there  must  naturally  be  a  seat  of  some  sort  over  behind 
the  wheel,  but  we  should  have  to  take  it  on  trust.     The 
suggestion  of   a  substantial  seat   for  the  bending  figure 
gives  us  unconsciously  a  feeling  of   repose  and  satisfac- 
tion.    Besides   this,    the    ornamental    post   of    the    chair 
back  makes  an  end  for  that  curving  line  of  light  beyond 
the    woman's   shoulder,    much    more    diversified    and    so 
much  pleasanter  to  look  at  than  it  would  have  been  had 
the    light   space   finished    abruptly  in   contact    with    her 
dark  petticoats.     The  light  behind  her  would  have  had, 
in  that  case,  the  forced,  theatrical   look  of   a  manufact- 
ured  halo.     As  it  is,  the  effect  of   the  mellow  daylight 
on   the    conscientious,    stooping   figure    has   just   enough 
remote  suggestion  of   a   halo  contained    in  its   perfectly 
natural,  unobtrusive,  every-day  effect  to  give  us  a  serene 
sense  of  blessing  and  of  peace. 


% 


STUDIES   OF   LIFE   AND   CHAEACTEE  109 

The  Joan  of  Arc,  by  Bastien-Lepage,1  represents  the 
French  heroine  listening  to  the  supernatural  voices  that 
called,  her  to  save  her  country  from  a  foreign  foe.  The 
marvellous  chapter  of  fifteenth-century  history  in  which 
she  figured  has  been  made  freshly  familiar  during  the  last 
few  years  by  American  writers.  We  recall  her  humble, 
peasant  parentage,  the  visions  which  impelled  her,  a  girl 
in  her  teens,  to  go  to  the  aid  of  the  French  prince  against 
Henry  VI  of  England,  her  military  victories,  bringing 
about  the  coronation  of  the  prince  as  Charles  VII,  and 
then  her  cruel  death  in  Rouen  at  the  hands  of  the  British. 
The  figure  of  this  strange  girl  —  seer,  warrior,  and.  woman 
all  in  one  —  had  been  a  favorite  subject  for  painters  and 
sculptors  for  four  hundred  years  before  Lepage's  day, 
but  he  treated  it  with  as  fresh  originality  as  if  he 
had  been  the  first  who  ever  pondered  and  wondered  over 
the  mystery  of  her  short  life.  Unlike  most  other  artists, 
he  pictures  her  as  a  genuine  peasant  girl,  not  as  an  angel 
of  beauty,  condescending  to  the  help  of  distracted  human- 
•ity,  but  an  honest  daughter  of  the  soil  with  a  common, 
peasant  frame,  rough  hands,  and  coarse  clothes  such  as 
poor  peasant  women  Avore  about  the  commonplace  tasks 
of  kitchen,  field,  and  farmyard.  He  shows  her  leaving 
work  for  a  moment  to  wander  out  into  the  woods  near 
her  home,  and  listening  to  the  heavenly  Guides  who  called 
her  from  barnyards  to  battle-fields.  Near  by,  seen  in- 
distinctly through  the  shrubbery,  a  Vision  is  shaping  it- 
self, the  vision  of  a  warrior  in  armor  and  two  accompany- 
ing figures  whose  details  are  less  clear.  St.  Michael,  St. 
Catharine,  and  St.  Margaret  are  said  by  tradition  to  be 

1  Jules  Bastien-Lepage,  a  French  artist,  born  in  1848.  lie  died  in  1884. 
The  original  of  this  picture  is  in  the  Metropolitan  Art  Museum,  New  York 
City. 


110  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

the  celestial  ones  who  came  to  instruct  and  lead  the 
humble  country  maid ;  hut  the  artist  wisely  left  their 
forms  vague  and  incomplete,  —  sufficiently  made  out  to  be 
suggestive  to  the  imagination,  yet  not  so  definitely  figured 
as  to  rival  Joan  in  the  appearance  of  reality.  It  was  Joan 
herself,  not  the  guiding  Saints,  whom  he  had  most  in  mind. 
It  is  difficult,  and  indeed  hardly  necessary,  to  identify 
the  figures  beyond  a  doubt.  A  Vision  like  this,  shown  in 
a  picture,  may  be  not  unreasonably  compared  with  shapes 
seen  in  drifting  clouds,  in  flames,  or  in  waves  breaking 
into  foam.  Each  of  us  translates  the  shapes  according  to 
his  own  inward  bent  of  fancy  and  sympathy.  But  on  the 
whole  the  distracting  confusion  of  this  Vision,  all  tangled 
up  as  it  is  with  the  crowded  disorder  of  the  shrubbery 
where  lights  and  shadows  play  hide-and-seek,  sends  us 
back  to  study  with  more  care  the  silent  figure  over  at  the 
other  side  of  the  picture,  leaning  against  a  tree. 

It  is  a  fascinating  figure.  Joan  has  no  girlish  beauty 
such  as  belongs  to  the  "teens."  Her  square  jaw, 
her  ugly  hands  and  arms,  her  shapeless  body  and* 
careless  dress  give  the  aesthetic  sense  very  little  satisfac- 
tion. But,  when  we  look  at  her  eyes,  we  see  why  this 
picture  is  counted  a  masterpiece.  Those  eyes,  certainly 
do  see  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamed 
of  in  our  philosophy.  They  are  the  eyes  of  a  mystic  seer, 
a  devotee,  a  martyr.  One  can  readily  believe  that  she 
who  looked  out  through  them  was  no  dull  peasant  after 
all,  but  a  "strong  excepted  soul "  shut  by  some  strange 
freak  of  fate  in  that  particularly  common,  clumsy  box  of 
bone  and  muscle  which  served  her  for  a  body.  George 
MacDonald  says  somewhere  that  it  is  a  serious  blunder  to 
teach  a  child  that  he  has  a  soul.  It  is  not  true  that  he  has  a 
soul.      He  is  a  soul.     What  he  has  or  possesses,  —  a  matter 


« 


o 


o 
o 


112  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

quite  secondary  to  what  he  essentially  is,  —  what  he  has 
is  a  body.  This  is  no  mere  dictionary  quibble  ;  there  is 
a  real  truth  involved  in  the  choice  of  phrase.  And  the 
longer  we  look  at  Lepage's  Joan,  the  more  we  feel  that 
the  canny  MacDonald  is  right.  The  real  Joan  we  see 
looking  out  through  those  great  eyes  as  through  windows 
in  a  wall.  The  bodv  which  she  inherited  from  her  sim- 
pie,  plodding  ancestors  was  only  a  convenient  tool  for 
temporary  use.  Incidentally  we  may  notice  the  square- 
ness of  the  jaw,  as  a  token  that  its  owner  had  not  only  the 
gift  of  spiritual  divination,  but  a  goodly  share  of  what  in 
small  affairs  we  call  obstinacy,  in  great  affairs  resolution 
and  hrmness. 

It  would  have  been  a  much  easier  matter  to  give  us  a 
beautiful  girl  in  armor,  riding  a  galloping  horse  to  glory. 
But  Lepage  chose  to  paint  a  great  soul. 


About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  great 
Spanish  artist,  Velasquez,1  painted  a  picture  of  JEsop, 
which  has  since  obtained  world-wide  fame.  In  Velas- 
quez' day,  as  in  ours,  iEsop's  fables  were  household  clas- 
sics ;  indeed,  as  far  back  as  the  first  century  A.D.,  Quin- 
tilian,  the  great  Roman  writer  on  rhetoric  and  oratory, 
advised  that  iEsop's  fables  should  be  used  as  a  first  read- 
ing book  for  children.  Translated  as  they  have  been  into 
the  languages  of  all  civilized  peoples,  and  used  the  world 
over  to  answer  the  perennial  demand  of  childhood  for  a 
"  story,"  the  tales  of  iEsop  are  now  the  common  intel- 
lectual property  of  the  race. 

1Don  Diego  Rodriquez  de  Suva  Velasquez,  born  in  1599,  died  in  1660. 
His  works  are  in  various  European  galleries,  an  especially  large  number 
of  them  at  Madrid.     This  picture  is  in  the  Madrid  museum. 


STUDIES   OE   LIFE   AND  CHARACTER  113 

Authorities  differ  in  regard  to  the  personality  of  iEsop 
himself.  According  to  the  more  commonly  received 
tradition  he  was  a  slave  in  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  ;i  part 
of  his  life  being  spent  in  Athens  under  a  Grecian  master, 
and  a  part  in  Asia  Minor  in  the  service  of  Croesus,  the 
king  of  Lydia.  Modern  research  tends  towards  the  the- 
ory that  the  fables  attributed  to  him  were  not  the  work 
of  one  man,  but  were  a  gradual  compilation  from  many 
sources,  including  old  Egyptian  literature. 

The  gradual  compilation  of  a  series  of  quaint  old  fables 
is  something  unpaintable.  A  poet  might  do  something 
with  this  idea,  but  an  artist  never.  What  the  old  Spanish 
master  did  was  to  set  before  us  his  conception  of  the  kind 
of  mind  and  the  kind  of  life  experience  out  of  which  the 
fables  seemed  to  him  to  have  grown,  and  he  expressed 
himself  in  seventeenth-century  forms. 

The  costume  worn  by  the  old  man  is  something 
quite  unknown  to  Greece  or  to  the  court  of  Croesus, 
and  the  book  cannot  be  taken  seriously  as  belonging 
to  an  age  six  hundred  years  before  Christ;  yet  these 
details  were  not  blunders.  Velasquez  was  no  archaeolo- 
gist, and  was  not  trying  to  paint  an  exact  image  of 
the  clothing  and  furniture  of  an  earlier  civilization. 
Let  us  see  on  the  other  hand  what  he  did  undertake 
to  do. 

Notice  how  exquisitely  the  artist  combined  the  evi- 
dences of  a  humble,  hard-working  life  and  of  a  philo- 
sophic mind.  The  face  and  figure  are  those  of  a  poor  man, 
old,  weather-beaten,  bent  by  the  carrying  of  heavy  bur- 
dens both  on  his  shoulders  and  on  his  soul,  yet  in  an- 
other sense  made  independent  of 

"...  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely," 

i 


114  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

by  the  shrewd  insight  which  made  him  aware  how  little 
the  proud  man's  contumely  amounts  to.  There  is  some- 
thing about  the  figure  which  suggests  the  sober,  kindly 
patience  of  the  husband  in  the  old  story,  asked  by  his 
neighbors  why  in  the  world  he  allowed  his  shrewish 
little  wife  to  beat  him.  "  Oh,  well,"  he  explained,  "  it 
amuses  her,  and  it  doesn't  hurt  me!"  There  is  a  subtle 
pathos  in  the  tired  droop  of  the  shoulders  and  arms,  the 
sagging  of  the  hips,  the  clumsy,  outward  roll  of  the 
foot  in  its  coarse  shoe.  The  physical  vigor  of  youth 
has  all  gone  by.  Yet,  in  spite  of  this,  in  spite  of  the 
deep  lines  of  care  and  suffering  in  the  face  above,  we 
should  not  presume  to  pity  any  man  with  so  strong  a  face, 
any  man  who  could  stand  off  and  look  at  the  tangled 
affairs  of  life  with  the  clear,  true-seeing  common-sense 
of  this  pilgrim  and  wayfarer.  His  is  a  face  capable  of 
laughter,  yet  not  much  given  to  laughing.  The  eyes 
look  as  if  in  their  time  they  had  known  the  feeling  of 
hot  tears, — but  tears  shed  when  there  were  none  to  see. 
The  firm-set  mouth  tells  volumes  about  the  growth  of 
self-control.  The  lips  that  framed  this  man's  thoughts 
in  imperishable  phrase  knew  also  how  to  keep  inscrutable 
silence.  They  were  far  from  uttering  all  that  their  owner 
thought. 

Once  more  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  the  artistic 
composition  of  the  picture  helps  give  this  impression  of 
serene  self-poise  and  mastery  to  the  figure  of  the  shabby 
old  man,  standing  one-sided  in  a  narrow  space  with  no 
imposing  accessories.  For  one  thing,  the  very  propor- 
tions of  the  picture  space  are  significant.  The  narrow 
boundaries  around  the  standing  figure  are  not  so  narrow 
as  to  seem  to  crowd  the  man's  form.  You  feel  that  he 
has  room  enough  to  throw  out  his  arms  and   throw   up 


J2S<  iP.  —  Velasquez. 


116  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

his  head  if  he  chose.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  figure 
completely  dominates  the  space.  A  single  human  figure 
under  a  great  open  sky  almost  inevitably  suggests  the 
littleness  and  powerlessness  of  man  in  contrast  with  the 
inscrutable  mightiness  of  the  universe  enfolding  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  complete  tilling  of  the  given 
space  with  a  single  figure,  as  in  this  sEsop  of  Velasquez, 
produces  an  exactly  opposite  impression,  —  that  of  human- 
ity as  essentially  superior  to  chance  conditions  ;  of  man 

able  to  say 

.  .  I  am  the  master  of  my  fate ; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul." 

Notice,  too,  how  the  chosen  standpoint  of  the  artist 
strengthens  this  effect  of  quiet,  dignified  mastery.  The 
picture  was  so  drawn  that  our  eyes  seem  on  a  level  but 
little  above  the  knee  of  iEsop.  This  is  evident  if  we 
notice  the  top  of  the  tub  which  rests  on  the  floor.  If 
the  spectator  were  standing,  his  eyes  on  a  level  with 
those  of  iEsop,  he  would  necessarily  see  the  top  of 
the  tub  as  a  very  broad  ellipse,  almost  a  circle  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  could  not  in  that  case  see,  as  now, 
the  under  surface  of  the  chin  and  the  cheek  bones. 
The  spectator  is  obliged  to  look  up  ;  he  has  a  sense  of 
looking  up,  though  the  feeling  may  not  be  consciously 
analyzed.  And,  as  in  the  case  of  a  very  different  sort 
of  picture  previously  cited  (see  page  97),  the  result 
is  a  subtle  impression  of  power  or  command  in  the  main 
figure  of  the  picture  itself. 

The  sad,  wise  old  face,  from  which  the  eyes  gaze  out 
with  so  wonderful  a  look  of  reserved  judgment,  is  the 
face  of  a  large-minded  old  pagan,  even  though  Velasquez 
doubtless  did  use  some  devout  son  of  the  Mother  Church 
for  a  model.     He   has  the  look  of  one   strong  through 


STUDIES   OF    LIFE    AND   CHARACTER  117 

sturdy  human  philosophy  like  Socrates,  rather  than  strong 
through  the  rapt,  ecstatic  visions  of  a  mediaival  saint. 
Did  he  look  forward  to  another  world  beyond  this, 
"  where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary 
are  at  rest "  ?  Perhaps  not.  His  shrewd,  humorous  phi- 
losophy was  a  lamp  to  walk  by  through  crowded,  erooked, 
terrestrial  paths,  not  a  search-light  for  sweeping  the 
heavens.  But,  as  we  look  up  to  the  worn  face,  in  its 
strong,  simple,  self-respecting  ugliness,  we  feel  that  we 
are  indeed  in  the  presence  of  one  whose  sayings  are  as 
full  of  vital  truth  to-day  as  they  were  twenty-five  hun- 
dred years  ago. 

The  First  Step,  by  Millet 1  (page  119),  makes  its  appeal 
at  once  to  our  instinctive  human  sympathies.  The  people 
in  the  picture  are  far  from  beautiful.  They  are  ordinary, 
hard-working  peasant  folk.  But  the  self-forgetful  love 
of  this  man  and  woman,  guiding  their  baby's  uncertain 
feet,  makes  them  akin  to  everybody  who  has  a  warm  heart 
of  his  own. 

As  we  look  at  the  page  we  seem  to  be  nearly  on  a  level 
with  the  kneeling  man ;  we  see  the  things  in  the  picture 
at  about  the  angle  at  which  we  should  see  them  if  our 
eyes  were  on  the  same  level  as  his.  The  people  are  not 
drawn  as  if  we  were  looking  down  on  them,  in  either  a 
literal  or  a  figurative  sense,  but  as  if  we  were  one  of 
them. 

The  heavy  awkwardness  of  the  man's  pose  is  undenia- 
ble, emphasized  by  the  uncompromising  ugliness  of  those 

1  Jean  Francois  Millet  (1814-1875),  one  of  the  most  celebrated  French 
artists  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Fame  came  to  him  after  a  great  many 
years  of  patient  work  with  meagre  recognition.  This  print  is  reproduced 
from  a  pastel  drawing. 


118  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

shapeless  wooden  shoes  and  of  the  trousers,  baggy  and 
overtight  by  turns.  And  yet  see  what  a  subtile  min- 
gling of  brute  strength  and  fatherly  tenderness  there  is 
in  the  outstretched  arms.  We  can  trace  so  plainly  the 
union  of  the  right  arm  with  the  trunk,  and  the  union 
seems  so  strong  and  firm  and  flexible,  that  it  impresses 
us  with  its  pure  animal  vigor,  like  that  in  the  limbs  of 
the  cattle  on  page  69,  or  the  lions  on  page  211;  and  yet 
the  gesture  of  the  man's  limbs  is  full  of  affectionate 
invitation  and  encouragement. 

See  the  character  in  the  mother's  arms  too  ;  how  sure 
their  lines  are.  There  is  nothing  seductive  or  siren-like 
about  them  (compare  Circe  on  page  125),  but  they  have 
a  certain  "  dependable  "  look  that  is  full  of  homely  at- 
tractiveness. If  they  tried  to  play  Avith  a  fan,  they  might 
be  as  clumsy  as  a  cow  ;  but  let  them  be  trusted  with  a 
load  to  carry  or  a  helpless  baby  to  protect,  and  they  can 
be  relied  on  for  faithfulness  and  tenderness.  Every  line 
of  her  honest,  awkward,  bent  figure  speaks  of  a  life  full 
of  hard  work,  like  the  man's. 

The  whole  make-up  of  the  picture  emphasizes  this 
impression  of  humble  toil.  There  are  no  tall  vertical 
lines  in  it,  suggestions  of  majesty  or  of  aspiration. 
Almost  everything  is  horizontal  —  as  we  say,  figuratively, 
"on  a  dead  level."  The  heavy  spade  and  wheelbarrow, 
the  clumsy  garden  fence,  the  rough  earth  in  the  fore- 
ground, and  the  little  cottage  in  the  background,  all  so 
closely  shut  in  Avithout  any  suggestion  of  a  far  outlook, 
even  into  the  sky,  —  these  unite  to  make  us  feel  the  bare 
simplicity  of  these  peasant  lives  and  the  narrowness  of 
their  spiritual  horizons. 

And  yet,  —  evidently  even  this  dull,  small  scrap  of  a 
world   is  large    enough   for    real,   human   happiness,  and 


e 

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) 


120  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

these  people  have  the  key  to  it  !  Though  backs  may  be 
bowed  and  muscles  may  be  stiffened  in  the  endless  rou- 
tine of  toil,  yet  there  is  a  solid  satisfaction  in  the  man- 
agement of  a  cottage  and  a  patch  of  vegetables  all  one's 
own ;  there  is  the  satisfaction  of  coaxing  tender  young 
plants  to  grow  out  of  inert  earth,  and  the  delight  of 
aiding  tender  young  lives  to  grow  out  of  helpless  infancy 
into  conscious,  self-active  power.  The  man  and  the 
woman  do  not  directly  look  at  each  other  at  all  in  this 
picture,  yet  the  artist  makes  us  feel  the  frank  oneness 
of  their  lives,  linked  as  they  are  by  that  toddling  baby 
figure.  Indeed,  the  three  figures  practically  make  one. 
The  outstretched  arms  of  the  father  and  the  child  make 
a  line  to  all  intents  and  purposes  continuous,  like  the 
horizontal  line  of  a  broad,  irregular  H  shape  in  the  centre 
of  the  picture  space.  The  little  gap  that  is  left  we  fill 
in  with  our  own  imagination.  The  simple  theme  of 
family  affection  is  quite  perfect,  and  the  picture,  as  a 
picture,  —  that,  Ave  find,  is  beautiful  too. 

The  better  we  know  this  drawing,  the  more  we  see  in 
it.  We  begin,  perhaps,  by  pardoning  its  rude,  common- 
place subject  and  details  for  the  sake  of  the  tender  human 
feeling  underlying  it  all  ;  but  after  a  while  we  see  that 
the  picture  is  actually  beautiful  in  itself.  The  lights 
and  darks  melt  into  each  other  so  softly ;  the  strong 
masses  of  dark  in  the  clothing  of  the  two  older  people 
are  so  unobtrusively  saved  from  looking  separate  and 
"  spotty,"  and  made  to  look  as  if  they  belonged  to  each 
other  by  the  out-reaching,  uniting  shade  of  the  man's  arm 
and  the  baby's  arm  ;  the  dark  spaces  of  tree  foliage  over- 
head repeat  the  emphatic  note  in  the  figures  below,  bend- 
ing over  them  in  so  kindly,  protecting  a  way,  somewhat 
as  the  parents  bend  over  the  child :  yes,  this  artist,  who 


STUDIES   OF    LIFE    AND   CHARACTER  121 

cho.se  to  spend  the  best  years  of  his  life  painting  simple 
peasants  at  their  work,  did  know  how  to  make  something 
wonderfully  beautiful  and  impressive  out  of  that  seem- 
ingly unpromising  material.  We  cannot  quite  tell  where 
the  charm  of  the  composition  lies,  but  we  feel  it.  There 
is  something  about  the  way  the  picture  is  put  together, 
like  the  "  something  "  inside  the  wordless  melody  of  an 
old  Irish  song,  which  wins  a  place  in  our  hearts  and 
keeps  it. 

Millet  had  his  own  characteristic  ways  of  working.  He 
showed  us  what  he  wanted  us  to  see  with  him  —  nothing 
useless  or  irrelevant  to  the  main  idea.  He  was  not,  in 
this  sketch,  concerning  himself  at  all  with  the  detailed 
features  of  this  particular  Jean  and  Marie.  It  was  the 
tender  fragrance  of  rude,  ignorant,  toil-worn  lives  that 
he  wanted  to  make  real  to  us,  not  the  exact  image  of  any 
one  particular  couple  identifiable  in  the  parish  records 
of  one  particular  French  village.  If  we  would  be  sure 
that  it  was  intention,  not  carelessness,  which  left  the 
faces  blurred,  let  us  notice  how  perfectly  the  artist  ex- 
pressed all  the  small  details  about  which  he  did  care  to 
spend  his  time.  See,  for  instance,  the  sagging  hang  of 
the  garden  gate  ;  see  the  suggestion  of  muscle  in  the  man's 
right  arm,  closely  outlined  by  the  clinging  shirt  sleeve. 
And  see  how  perfectly  the  stooping  woman  and  the  baby 
stand  out  against  the  background  of  the  fence.  The 
grayness  of  the  woman's  right  arm,  for  example,  is  almost 
the  same  as  the  grayness  of  the  fence  pickets,  and  its 
outline  seems  entirely  unobtrusive  ;  yet  there  is  no  con- 
fusion between  them  as  there  would  be  in  an  amateur's 
drawing.  We  feel  that  the  woman  and  the  child  are 
much  nearer  us  than  the  fence ;  there  is  actually  an  open, 
airy  space  between  her  right  shoulder  and  the  wooden 


122  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

palings.  How  does  Millet  give  us  this  feeling  of  airy 
space  between  two  solid  bodies,  just  by  laying  gray 
lines,  almost  alike,  side  by  side  on  a  sheet  of  paper? 
That  is  one  of  the  fascinating  mysteries  of  a  master's 
workmanship. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   LEGEND   AND^FANCY 

r  I  ^HE  Circe  of  Burne-Jones1  deserves  careful  study,  both 
for  its  masterly  handling  of  a  subject  so  old  in  story, 
and  for  the  charm  of  its  composition  in  the  matter  of 
forms  and  lines,  lights  and  darks. 

The  picture  takes  its  theme  from  the  tenth  book  of  the 
Odyssey,  where  the  wandering  Ulysses  reaches  the  island 
of  the  enchantress.  The  artist  lias  chosen  a  moment 
when  Circe,  in  her  palace  by  the  shore,  makes  ready  a 
fatal  banquet  for  the  men  whose  approaching  boats  are 
seen  through  the  open  window.  She  is  dropping  into  the 
wine  jars  some  secret  potion  destined  to  hold  the  voyagers 
under  her  magic  power.  Two  wretched  beings  who  drag 
out  their  days  transformed  into  panthers  plead  dumbly 
for  mercy  on  their  brother  men,  but  they  are  evidently 
utterly  helpless  to  save  the  advancing  sailors  from  a  fate 
like  their  own. 

See  how  irresistibly  the  vessels  are  borne  on  towards 
the  enchantress.  The  swelling  of  the  sails  shows  that  a 
strong  wind  is  blowing  the  boats  directly  on  shore.  The 
oars,  too,  are  at  work  ;  not  merely  blown  upon  the  coast, 
the  men  by  the  sheer  perversity  of  fate  are  hastening 
their  own  misfortunes,  hurrying  to  meet  them.  The  odd, 
processional  grouping  of  the  vessels,  one  behind  another, 

1  Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones,  an  English  painter  (1833-1898).  He  was  a 
distinguished  member  of  the  Royal  Academy. 

123 


124  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

intensifies  the  feeling  that  the  coming  is  something 
ordained.  Such  a  repetition  of  one  detail  in  a  picture 
almost  always  lends  to  what  might  otherwise  be  without 
great  significance  an  effect  of  ceremonial  rite,  and  so  of 
symbolic  meaning. 

The  wide  expanse  of  open  horizon  suggests  the  mysteri- 
ous isolation  of  Circe's  land  from  the  common,  honest 
ground  of  homes  and  firesides.  We  feel  that  the  voyagers 
have  come  a  long,  long  way.  We  wonder  if  they  will 
ever  recross  that  great,  trackless  sea  and  meet  their  own 
once  more. 

The  palace  of  witchcraft  is  a  beautiful  spot.  We  can 
see  how  exquisite  it  must  look  to  sailors  tired  of  wind 
and  storm  and  rough  fare.  The  walls  are  carven 
with  vines  and  garlands.  The  seat  of  the  mistress 
is  magnificent  in  its  air  of  dignified  repose.  The  wait- 
ing feast  is  set  out  in  a  fashion  to  delight  the  eye, 
with  immaculately  fresh  linen,  flowers,  and  great  jars  of 
wine.  The  witch  lady  herself  is  evidently  robed  for  the 
occasion  in  some  filmy,  diaphanous  stuff  that  Avill  later 
reveal  the  seductive  curves  of  her  lithe  figure,  now  only 
hinted  at  under  a  calyx-like  wrap  of  heavy  stuff  with 
sweeping  folds.  Her  delicately  modelled  face  is  intent 
on  the  measuring  of  the  magic  philter.  She  is  mistress 
absolute  in  this  fateful  palace  ;  the  panther  captives  may 
safely  see  all  that  goes  on,  for  they  can  tell  no  tales  !  Yet 
it  is  ingrained  in  her  nature  to  be  sly.  She  steps  with  the 
noiseless  grace  of  a  cat,  merely  for  pleasure  in  the  process. 
She  does  not  refuse  the  mute  petition  of  the  panthers  ; 
worse  than  that,  she  does  not  trouble  herself  to  notice 
that  they  are  begging  her  to  relent,  to  let  her  slaves  go 
free.  And  meanwhile,  seen  through  that  queer,  wide 
window-slit,   as   through   an  eye   with  dropped  lid  nar- 


126  •       HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

rowing  it  to  a  sinister,  level  line,  —  the  ships  come  nearer 
and  nearer.   .   .   . 

The  singular  contrasts  between  long  straight  lines  and 
curved  lines  in  this  picture  strike  the  eye  and  the  imagina- 
tion at  once.  We  are  all  the  more  impressed  by  the  feline 
quality  of  Circe's  figure,  comparing  its  long,  sleek  supple- 
ness with  the  outlines  of  window  frame  and  horizon  and 
table. 

The  repetition  of  lines  is  another  important  element  of 
beauty  here.  Repetition  of  line  in  a  picture  is  in  a  cer- 
tain fashion  analogous  to  the  repetition  of  sounds  in 
poetry,  or  what  we  call  musical  prose.  Take  the 
famous  line  of  Lorenzo's  speech  to  Jessica,  in  Portia's, 
garden  at  night  :  — • 

"  How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank." 

We  all  feel  that  the  phrasing  is  melodious.  Besides  its 
being  an  effective  figure  of  speech  to  speak  of  moonlight 
as  sleeping,  the  echo  or  reflection  of  the  same  sounds  in 
sweet  and  sleep  is  something  charming  to  our  sense  of 
hearing.  Or  take  this  passage  from  the  prose  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  :  — 

"  It  was  a  long  look  forward ;  the  future  summoned  me  as  with 
trumpet  calls  ;  it  warned  me  back  as  with  a  voice  of  weeping  and 
beseeching,  and  I  thrilled  and  trembled  on  the  brink  of  life  like 
a  childish  bather  on  the  beach." 

Even  when  we  read  silently  to  ourselves,  we  pronounce 
the  words  in  imagination  with  sufficient  distinctness  to 
be  touched  by  their  music.  Everybody  who  cares  for 
poetry  at  all  knows  how  much  his  pleasure  in  it  is  in- 
creased by  noticing  these  graceful  touches  in  an  author's 
workmanship.  It  is  much  the  same  way  with  pictures 
and  their  repetition  of  masses  or  of  lines,  or  of  lights  or 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   LEGEND   AND   FANCY  127 

darks.  In  this  Circe,  for  example,  see  liow  the  bending 
stalks  of  the  flowers  beside  the  wine  jar  and  the  crouch- 
ing figures  of  the  panthers,  repeating  in  certain  varieties 
the  general  effect  of  the  principal  figure,  emphasize  the 
impression  of  that  effect.  One  might  again  compare  it  to 
the  repetition  of  a  motive  in  music  which  develops  further 
the  musical  idea.  The  creases  in  the  hanging  table- 
cover  echo  that  oppressive  wide  level  of  the  vacant,  help- 
less horizon.  The  tall,  slender-necked  vase  by  the  right 
end  of  the  table  reflects  the  stately  uprightness  of  the 
throne-like  seat  whence  the  mistress  is  to  preside  over  the 
feast.  The  forward-stretched  paws  of  the  beasts,  seen 
dimly  through  the  shadows,  repeat  with  a  fascinating  sort 
of  grotesqueness  something  of  the  pose  of  Circe's  own 
exquisite  white  arm. 


One  of  the  most  popular  American  illustrators  of  the 
day  is  Charles  Dana  Gibson.  Everybody  who  sees  the 
leading  magazines  knows  the  type  of  woman  he  draws 
over  and  over  again,  —  a  tall,  erect  young  person  with  an 
athletic  figure  and  tailor-made  clothes,  her  head  haughtily 
thrown  back,  and  an  expression  either  of  elegant  bore- 
dom or  breezy  self-assertion  according  to  circumstances. 
She  might  not  be  the  most  agreeable  of  girls  to  live  with, 
week  in  and  week  out ;  but  plenty  of  people  are  delightful 
in  stories  and  in  pictures  whom  we  find  less  desirable  in 
the  flesh.  Gibson's  enthusiastic,  reiterated  practice  on 
this  one  theme  has  given  him  perfect  mastery  of  it  in  his 
own  way,  and  his  drawings  in  Harper 's,  Scribner's,  Life, 
and  other  magazines  are  always  worth  study. 

it  is  interesting  to  see  what  admirable  effects  this  artist 
secures  with  very  simple  means.     The  illustration  on  page 


128  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

129  is  from  a  pen-and-ink  drawing,1  illustrating  the  old 
story  of  King  Midas.  Midas  was  offered  by  one  of  the 
gods  the  fulfilment  of  his  dearest  wish,  and  chose  the 
power  of  turning  into  gold  whatever  he  touched.  Haw- 
thorne, in  his  version  of  the  legend,  relates  how  the  king 
kissed  his  daughter,  and,  in  dismay,  saw  her  change  before 
his  very  eyes  into  a  gleaming  metal  statue. 

The  princess  here  is  the  very  same  "  Gibson  girl "  whom 
we  have  often  met  both  in  Life  and  in  life.  But  see  how 
perfectly  the  artist  shows  her  terrible  transformation. 
We  feel  certain,  as  we  look  at  her,  that  her  face  and  neck 
are  not  of  flesh  and  blood.  They  actually  look  hard  and 
metallic.  The  way  in  which  their  surfaces  reflect  the 
gleam  of  the  light  shows  that  they  are  of  some  dense, 
polished  stuff,  not  of  living,  throbbing  tissues.  And 
notice  the  rippling  locks  down  over  her  shoulders.  They, 
too,  look  not  so  much  like  living  hair  as  like  shining 
masses  of  metal,  hardened  into  permanent  curves.  The 
draperies  have  the  same  appearance  of  rigidity ;  their 
long,  straight  folds  give  a  singular  impression  of  weight. 
When  we  have  studied  the  figure  a  little,  we  find  its  effect 
of  being  heavy,  rigid,  and  shining  is  something  quite  won- 
derful as  the  result  of  a  few  pen  strokes. 

One  of  Mr.  Gibson's  favorite  bits  of  humor  is  to  show 
how  the  typical  American  girl  rules  her  parents.  One 
cannot  help  surmising  that  the  horror  and  despair  of  the 
poor  old  king  here  have  an  admixture  of  terror  at  the 
thought  of  that  tall  daughter's  severe  judgment  of  him 
and  his  latest  blunder.  Is  there  not  something  appre- 
hensive as  well  as  remorseful  in  the  way  in  which  the  poor 
fellow  huddles  himself  together,  clenching  his  hands  in 
his  straggling  beard  ?  Notice,  in  this  figure,  as  well  as  in 
1  Originally  made  for  the  Prang  Elementary  Course  of  Art  Instruction. 


<-  o 


J/ 


<m 


KING  MIDAS  AND   HIS   DAUGHTER. -Gibson. 


130  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

the  other,  how  much  is  told  with  a  very  few  hold  lines  ; 
we  have  all  the  signs  of  emotion  which  Delsarte  himself 
could  ask  for  in  such  a  circumstance,  —  kneeling  posture, 
staring  eyes,  forehead  drawn  into  vertical  wrinkles  be- 
tween the  brows,  the  lower  jaw  dropped,  the  hands  con- 
vulsively clenched,  the  whole  figure  shrinking  into  smaller 
compass  as  if  to  elude  fate's  blow.  Only  a  clever 
draughtsman  could  put  so  much  expression  into  so  few 
lines.  Even  the  rich  texture  of  the  king's  robe  is  indicated 
by  the  stiff  bulkiness  of  its  folds.  It  looks  like  woven 
stuff,  not  like  metal  as  in  the  case  of  the  princess's  gown, 
but  the  way  in  which  its  folds  hang  shows  that  it  must 
be  of  the  stiff  est  brocade,  probably  gold-embroidered  in 
gorgeous  patterns.  Alas,  poor  Midas  !  He  had  ordered 
it  before  having  so  unhappy  an  overdose  of  his  favorite 
luxury. 

There  are  fashions  in  pictorial  subjects  as  well  as  in 
literary  subjects.  The  books  bought  by  our  great-grand- 
fathers for  family  reading  were  mostly  of  a  grave  and 
sedate  character,  harmonizing  discreetly  with  the  Paradise 
Lost  and  Pilgrim  s  Progress,  which  had  come  down  from  a 
still  earlier  generation.  The  book  illustrations  made  in 
those  days  partook  largely  of  this  serious,  scriptural 
character ;  some  of  the  best  artistic  ability  of  the  times 
went  into  the  quaint  old-fashioned  prints  which  we  now- 
adays turn  over  with  careless  haste,  seldom  giving  them 
more  attention  than  the  ponderous  essays  and  formal 
verses  with  which  they  are  associated.  Many  of  them, 
doubtless,  might  just  as  well  be  forgotten  ;  still,  there  are 
anions:  these  old  drawings  some  which  have  an  immortal 
truth  and  beauty  about  them,  and  which  appeal  to  us 
to-day  quite  as  strongly  as  to  our  grandsires. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  OF    LEGEND   AND    FANCY  131 

Blake's1  Death's  Door  is  one  of  these.  The  idea  is 
simplicity  itself,  —  the  old  man  entering  into  the  rest  he 
longs  fur,  tin;  youth  springing  from  the  earth,  his  frame 
full  of  vigor  and  his  face  full  of  eager  aspiration.  We 
feel  certain  that  the  joyful  strength  of  the  young  man  is 
prophetic  for  the  old  man, --that  just  such  strength  will 
come  to  the  tired  wanderer,  and  that  just  so  he  too  will 
rise  to  new  life  and  new  work.  We  feel,  as  we  look  at 
the  open  door,  that  the  darkness  and  silence  beyond  are 
only  like  the  darkness  and  silence  of  a  night  wherein  we 
can  rest  to  wake  up  ready  for  another  long,  full  day. 

Notice  the  dignified  simplicity  of  the  artist's  manner 
of  treating  the  subject.  Here  is  no  place  for  trifling, 
temporary  prettiness.  The  upright  pillars  and  the  cross 
beam  above  are  severely  plain,  the  opening  door  is 
heavy.  If  closed  tight,  it  would  seem  to  guard  impene- 
trable secrets  and  treasures.  But  it  opens  at  the  old 
man's  approach  :  there  is  no  need  for  him  to  raise 
the  knocker  which  hangs  against  the  panels.  There  is 
a  strong  inward  draught  blowing  through  the  door  ;  see 
how  the  flowing  hair  and  draperies  respond,  hurrying  the 
unsteady  feet  towards  the  threshold. 

The  tired  droop  of  the  shoulders,  the  nerveless  hugging 
of  the  staff  to  the  side  by  an  arm  whose  fingers  have- 
forgotten  how  to  grasp  a  thing  forcibly,  the  shaky  look 
of  the  knee  which  we  see  from  behind, — all  these  com- 
bine to  make  us  feel  how  sorely  the  traveller  needs  the 
promised  rest. 

The  athlete  above  is  full  of  life  and  spring.  The  very 
pose  of   the  right  leg  and  the  right  arm  mean  abounding 

1  William  Blake,  an  English  artist  and  poet  (1757-1827).  This  draw- 
ing was  originally  made  as  one  of  a  series  of  illustrations  to  a  volume  by 
a  distinguished  Scotch  clergyman. 


132  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

strength  and  vigorous  self-command.  Just  contrast  that 
arm  and  hand  with  the  arm  and  hand  of  the  man  below. 
Those  square  shoulders  will  be  able  to  bear  any  sort  of 
burden  the  new  life  lays  upon  them.  And  those  eyes, 
looking  upward  with  such  frank  confidence  in  destiny, 
will  see  rights  and  duties  clearly.  Everything  good  and 
great  and  happy  may  come  to  him.  He  is  immortal 
youth. 

And  yet :  — 

We  feel  a  special  tenderness  for  the  old  man  who  is 
tired,  so  tired  !  Perhaps  it  is  because  the  youth  in  his 
strength  is  self-sufficient  and  the  man  in  his  weakness 
appealingly  dependent  ;  at  all  events,  the  bent  and  trem- 
bling figure  has  a  warm  place  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
care  most  for  the  picture.  It  associates  itself  in  memory 
with  the  exquisite  imagery  and  the  quiet  flowing  rhythm 
of  Louise  Imogen  Guiney's  "•  Open,  Time  "  :  — 

"  Open,  Time,  and  let  him  pass 
Shortly  where  his  feet  would  be  ! 
Like  a  leaf  at  Michaelmas 
Swooning  from  the  tree, 

"  Ere  its  hour  the  manly  mind 
Trembles  in  a  sure  decrease, 
Nor  the  body  now  can  find 
Any  hold  on  peace. 

"  Take  him  weak  and  overworn ; 
Fold  about  his  dying  dream 
Boyhood  and  the  April  morn 
And  the  rolling  stream  : 

"  "Weather  on  a  sunny  ridge, 
Showery  weather,  far  from  here ; 
Under  some  deep-ivied  bridge, 
Water  rushing  clear : 


DEATH'S  DOOR.  — Blake. 


13-1  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

••  Water  quick  to  cross  and  part 
(Golden  light  on  silver  sound'). 
Weather  that  was  next  his  heart 
All  the  world  around  ! 

"  Soon  upon  his  vision  break 
These,  in  their  remembered  blue  ; 
He  shall  toil  no  more,  but  wake 
Young,  in  air  he  knew. 

"  lie  has  done  with  roofs  and  men. 
Open,  Time,  and  let  him  pass, 
Vague  and  innocent  again, 
Into  country  grass." 


The  Electricity  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  1  needs  a  word 
of  explanation  as  to  its  setting.  It  is  one  of  a  series  of 
Avail  paintings  over  the  great  central  stairway  of  the 
Boston  Public  Library.  Each  panel  is  surrounded  by 
a  setting  of  tawny  marble.  A  bit  of  this  enclosing 
marble  is  seen  in  the  print  on  either  side  of  the  arched 
outline  of  the  picture  proper. 

The  subjects  of  the  various  panels,  Philosophy,  Astron- 
omy, History,  Chemistry,  Physics,  Lyric  Poetry,  Dramatic 
Poetry,  and  Epic  Poetry,  typify  the  many-sided  receptiv- 
ity of  man's  spiritual  nature,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
manifested  agencies  at  work  in  the  universe  for  man's 
inspiration  and  uplifting. 

The  general  subject  of  this  panel  M.  de  Chavannes 
calls  Physics ;  the  detailed  subject  is  Electricity  as  a 
means  of  communicating  the  thoughts  of  human  beings 

1  Pierre  Puvis  de  Chavannes  (1824-1898),  one  of  the  greatest  French 
artists  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  reproduction  of  this  example  is 
made  by  the  kindness  of  Curtis  &  Cameron,  of  Boston,  in  whose  series  of 
••Copley  Prints"  several  of  his  finest  works  are  included. 


MHHH 


ELECTRICITY.  —  Puvis  de  Ciiavannes. 


136  HOW  TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

to  each  other.  We  see  a  deep  mountain  valley  with 
wild,  rocky  walls,  one  of  the  vast,  waste  spaces  of  the 
earth,  interposed  between  distant  centres  of  life  and 
thought  and  action.  Through  this  barren  interval  stretch 
the  lines  of  the  electric  telegraph  ;  and  over  these  lines 
fly  messengers  of  good  and  bad  tidings,  the  one  joyful, 
waving  an  olive  branch,  the  other  hiding  her  face  with 
dread  of  the  suffering  she  herself  is  doomed  to  bring. 

The  theme  is  very  simple.  The  artist  deals  with  no 
elaborate  conception  recpuiring  research  and  explanation 
on  the  intellectual  side.  He  tells  no  story.  He  makes 
his  appeal  to  our  sense  of  beauty  in  spaces,  lines,  lights, 
and  darks  (and,  in  the  original,  to  our  sense  of  color 
harmony),  rather  than  to  our  knowledge  of  facts  or  our 
judgment  of  theories.  This  picture  in  particular  was 
meant  to  be  looked  at  from  a  considerable  distance, 
whence  it  would  seem  like  a  part  of  the  wall  of  the 
staircase  hall.  We  cannot  see  this  reproduction  of  it 
in  just  that  way  :  but  we  can  make  an  approach  to  the 
best  method  of  study. 

Hold  the  picture  off  at  such  a  distance  that  you  no 
longer  distinguish  the  separate  fingers  of  the  outstretched 
hands  or  the  separate  blossoms  on  the  little  shrubs  in 
the  foreground.  Try  to  see  it  as  one  whole,  without 
selecting  out  any  details  at  all  ;  look  at  it  just  as  you 
listen  to  orchestral  music  or  to  chorus  singing,  for  the 
general  effect  of  harmony  in  the  complete  work. 

It  is  easier  to  see  that  the  composition  is  beautiful 
than  to  say  win  it  is  beautiful.  For  that  matter,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  say  why.  But  if  we  make  changes  in 
the  arrangements  of  lines  and  spaces,  comparing  our  re- 
sults with  the  artist's  idea,  we  begin  to  feel  more  vividly 
the  essential  rightness  of   the  actual  picture.     The  pro- 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   LEGEND   AND   FANCY 


137 


Chavannes  used 
pose    these    are 


portions  of  the  picture  space  were  planned  by  the  archi- 
tects of  the  building,  with  a  view  to  securing  the  most 
stately  and  beautiful  effect  in  the  whole  wall,  so  we 
must  keep  to  the  upright  oblong  with  its  arching  top. 
Suppose  we  take  the  same  two  angels,  a  sloping  moun- 
tain side,  a  telegraph  line,  and  a  pile  of  rocks  :  that  is 
about  all  that  Puvis  de 
,  But  sup- 
ar  ranged 
somewhat  as  in  Figure  1. 
The  effect,  we  own  at  once, 
is  stupid  and  ugly.  The 
unity  of  the  composition 
is  lost.  The  angel  with 
the  dark  draperies  seems 
crowded  into  a  very  small 
garret,  quite  independent 
of  the  rest  of  the  pict- 
ure ;  besides,  she  gives  such 
an  effect  of  weight  as  to 
make  the  whole  thing  top 
heavy.  The  angel  below 
ought  to  look  as  if  she 
were  flying,  but  some  way 
she  does  not.  The  tele- 
graph post  coming  between 
us  and  her  body  spoils  the 
effect  of  forward  motion,  and  makes  her  look  as  if  she 
were  impaled  on  a  spindle.  The  diagonal  crossing  of  the 
telegraph  wires  with  the  mountain  outline  is  not  pleasant 
to  the  eye  ;  it  is  ugly  and  uninteresting.  The  rocks 
below  take  up  too  much  room.  We  should  never  care  to 
give  such  a  picture  as  this  a  second  glance. 


Fig.  1. 


138  HOW   TO   EXJOY   PICTURES 

Hut  what  was  it  that  Puvis  de   Chavannes  did  with 

the  same  materials  ? 

See  in  the  first  place  how  the  whole  panel  holds  to- 
gether. It  is  all  one  thing  ;  there  is  no  appearance  of 
one  figure  being  fenced  off  away  from  the  rest.  The 
deeper-colored  figure  with  the  more  horizontal  lines  is 
placed  lower  than  the  other  ;  the  airier  figure  Avith  the 
soaring,  upward  curves  is  placed  above,  and  this  seems 
as  it  should  be.  The  draperies  blown  back  by  the  wind 
are  full  of  suggestions  of  onward  motion,  and  there  are 
no  impeding  lines  between  us  and  the  figures  to  injure 
this  effect.  Only  the  heavier  coloring  of  the  lower 
figure,  its  position  just  a  little  behind  the  sister  with 
the  olive  branch,  and  its  partial  hiding  by  the  edge  of 
the  picture,  all  together  give  this  lower  figure  an  effect  of 
just  a  little  appropriate  reluctance  in  its  motion.  And 
are  not  the  two  figures  much  more  pleasant  to  look  at 
for  their  avoidance  of  exactly  even  positions  ?  We  do 
not  want  them  to  remind  us  of  a  span  of  horses. 

The  slope  of  the  mountain  side  is  balanced  by  an 
opposing  diagonal  which  prevents  the  picture  from 
having  too  one-sided  and  slanting  a  look,  but  this  diag- 
onal is  much  more  delicately  managed  than  in  Figure  1. 
The  artist  merely  suggests  the  balancing  direction  in  the 
pose  of  two  outstretched  arms  :  one  of  the  bearer  of  sad 
news,  and  one  of  the  joyful  angel  above.  It  is  so  unob- 
trusive that  we  do  not  realize  its  importance  until  we 
think  of  the  long  slope  left  quite  unbroken,  or  the  same 
slope  broken  with  awkward  insistence  as  by  the  tele- 
graph wires  in  Figure  1. 

As  for  the  rocks  below,  they  are  simply  just  as  they 
should  be.  We  feel  that  something  is  needed  here  to 
suggest  the  nearer  wall  of  the  valley.     The  rock  masses 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF    LEGEND    AM)    FANCY  l:}il 

give  a  satisfactory  sense  of  weight  at  the  bottom  of  the 
picture,  and  yet  they  arc;  not  too  much  in  evidence. 
Their  comparatively  light  color  makes  them  offer  a 
pleasant  contrast  with  the  darker  space  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  serve  at  the  same  time  as  a  softened  echo  or 
reflection  of  the  stronger  lights  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
picture.  See,  too,  how  much  the  delicate  touch  of  light 
in  the  telegraph  pole  and  wires  does  for  the  sombre 
space  of  the  valley.  We  see  bits  of  composition  like 
this  on  well-designed  Japanese  panels,  where  a  seemingly 
irrelevant  leaf  spray,  or  a  spider's  web,  or  a  curling 
wreath  of  cloud  relieves  what  else  might  be  a  monot- 
onous and  unlovely  bare  space  within  a  given  outline. 
And,  in  this  connection,  notice  how  the  cloud  streaks 
and  the  olive  branch  and  the  lightning  zigzag  keep  the 
upper  arched  space  from  bare  emptiness. 

Even  in  a  print  like  this,  where  we  have  nothing  what- 
ever of  the  positive  colors  of  the  painting,  we  can  see 
enough  of  its  beauty  of  design  to  feel  that  the  man  who 
composed  it  is  rightly  reckoned  among  the  great.  He 
has  a  style  of  his  own.  As  we  reminded  ourselves  in 
the  first  place,  he  does  not  profess  to  tell  stories,  or  even 
to  sing  hymns  and  ballads.  His  pictures  are  more  like 
the  great  music  which  has  no  words  to  go  with  it,  but 
which  delights  our  sense  of  harmony  and  rhythm.  In 
one  sense  this  picture  may  not  "  mean  "  so  much  to  our 
minds  as  many  others  which  we  have  been  studying  ;  but 
the  more  we  study  it  the  more  we  like  to  look  at  it  over 
and  over,  just  as  we  like  to  hear  a  certain  piece  of  music. 
It  rests  us. 


* 


140  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  man}-  different  ways  there 
are  of  doing  a  good  thing  well.  Comparatively  few 
artists  attempt  to  draw  in  Flaxman's  1  manner  ;  but,  when 
we  do  have  a  chance  to  see  a  bit  of  drawing  in  the  style 
of  Thetis  and  the  Nereids,  it  is  likely  to  be  well  worth 
studjdng,  for  the  very  reason  that  its  difficulties  frighten 
away  ordinary  draughtsmen. 

The  subject  of  the  drawing  is  taken  from  Book  XVIII 
of  the  Iliad,  where  Thetis,  the  goddess  mother  of  Achilles, 
starts  to  ask  Vulcan  for  a  new  suit  of  armor  for  her  son, 
sending  her  attendant  nymphs  meanwhile  back  to  their 
home  to  await  her  return. 

Before  we  look  much  at  the  details  of  the  drawing,  let 
us  notice  the  leading  lines  and  see  how  expressive  as  well 
as  graceful  their  directions  are.  The  exquisite,  long 
curves  of  the  goddess'  body  and  draperies,  extending 
almost  to  the  top  of  the  picture,  and  sloping  a  little  to 
one  side  when  we  take  them  as  a  whole,  give  us  a  vivid 
sense  of  upward  motion,  easy  and  light  and  sure,  like 
that  of  a  soaring  bird.  And  yet  it  is  not  actual,  present 
motion.  Thetis  is  pausing  for  an  instant  to  give  her 
maidens  their  orders.  Her  form  is  still  just  for  the 
moment,  and  yet  we  feel  that  in  a  second  more  she  will 
be  gone.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  swiftness  too  in  the 
pose  of  the  figure,  like  the  upward  sweep  of  a  rocket, 

Then  look  at  the  Nereids.  Those  long  draperies  blow- 
ing in  the  wind  seem  to  rise  and  fall  in  loner,  gradual 
swells.  The  bodies  of  the  nymphs,  just  turning  to 
descend  at   the    goddess'    command,   irresistibly   suggest 

1  John  Flaxman,  one  of  the  most  famous  of  English  artists  (1755- 
1820).  He  was  an  eminent  sculptor,  and  his  work  in  that  direction  had 
an  evident  influence  upon  his  style  of  drawing,  leading  him  to  the  use  of 
very  simple  outlines  with  comparatively  little  dependence  on  effects  of 
light  and  shade. 


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55 


142  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

rolling  motion  —  motion  in  downward  curves  that  roll 
onward  and  over,  not  altogether,  but  with  hesitating 
pauses,  and  little  upward  tendril-like  curves  here  and 
there,  yet  on  the  whole  rolling  steadily  forward  and 
downward.  It  is  for  all  the  world  like  the  motion  of 
waves  rolling  in-shore,  with  a  surging  swell  of  waters 
behind  them,  and  a  nutter  of  backward-blown  spray  at 
their  crests,  like  the  waving  of  hair  and  the  gesture  of 
Avhite  hands.     Surely  ;  for  these  are  sea-nymphs  ! 

The  more  we  pore  over  the  picture,  the  more  charming 
this  subtle  likeness  shows  itself  to  be.  To  make  the 
simple  outlines  of  these  water-sprites  in  themselves  ex- 
press the  rolling  curves  of  breakers  on  a  beach  —  who  but 
a  master  could  show  us  so  intangible,  elusive  a  sort  of 
beauty?  And  yet  Flaxman  did  just  that.  Do  we  not 
remember  how,  when  watching  the  waves  on  a  lake  or 
seashore,  we  have  seen  one  wave  spend  itself  prema- 
turely, breaking  into  foam  and  leaving  a  broken  fringe  of 
bubbles  on  the  curving  shoulder  of  the  wave  next  ahead  of 
it?  Do  not  the  forward-drooping,  limp,  white  fingers 
of  the  nymph  with  knotted  hair  and  of  the  sister  with 
loose  locks  suggest  this  very  trick  of  the  waves?  And 
see  how  irresistibly  the  forward-reaching  hands  of  the 
nymphs  at  the  extreme  left,  with  their  lazy,  stroking 
gestures,  remind  one  of  the  lapping  of  the  thin,  innermost 
edge  of  a  wave,  where  it  reaches  in  over  the  sandy  space 
of  a  beach,  advancing  and  withdrawing  and  advancing 
again,  with  indolent,  irregular  outline. 

It  is  evident  enough  that  the  man  who  drew  this  pict- 
ure must  have  entered  with  truly  marvellous  sympathy 
and  understanding  into  the  poetic  spirit  of  the  old  Greek 
legends.  As  the  ancient  Greek  saw  in  the  heaving,  roll- 
ing,  caressing  waves  of  the  sea  something  like  the  forms 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF   LEGEND   AND   FANCY  143 

and  motions  of  living-  creatures,  so  this  imaginative  Eng- 
lishman, in  his  turn,  conceived  the  nymphs  of  the:  Homeric 
story  as  betraying  their  kinship  to  the  sea  with  every 
curve  of  their  supple  bodies,  every  flying  fold  of  their 
draperies,  and  every  touch  of  their  slender  lingers.  We 
can  readily  believe  the  stories  the  biographers  tell  of  how 
the  boy  Flaxman,  growing  up  in  his  father's  shop  full  of 
plaster  casts  from  antique  sculptures,  taught  himself 
Latin  and  Greek  for  the  sake  of  reading  the  poetry  that 
belonged  with  the  exquisite  forms  of  the  classic  gods  and 
goddesses. 

The  poise  of  the  figures  in  this  particular  drawing  is  so 
perfectly  managed,  it  does  not  occur  to  us  for  some  time 
that  not  one  of  the  six  has  an  inch  of  anything  substan- 
tial to  rest  on  —  not  even  a  cloud!  When  we  do  come 
to  think  of  it,  we  are  a  little  surprised  to  find  how  easily 
we  were  satisfied.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  in  the  case 
of  both  the  goddess  and  the  nymphs  the  feeling  of  motion 
is  so  vivid  that  there  is  no  room  for  questions  of  stability. 
We  have  no  more  fear  for  Thetis,  pausing  for  a  second  in 
her  upward  flight,  than  we  should  have  for  a  bird,  hover- 
ing for  an  instant  in  mid  air  above  our  heads.  As  for  the 
nymphs,  our  eyes  are  so  impressed  by  the  buoyant,  float- 
ing effect  of  their  flowing  veils  and  by  the  wave-like 
effect  of  their  own  delicate  bodies  that  we  forget  to 
ask  prosaic,  literal-minded  questions  about  supports  and 
centres  of  gravity.  We  should  as  soon  think  of  asking 
them  their  ages  !  We  gladly  give  ourselves  up  to  this 
charming  bit  of  artistic  imagination  —  this  scrap  of 
poetry  written  in  lines  instead  of  in  words. 


CHAPTER   IX 

PICTURES   WITH   RELIGIOUS   THEMES 

TTTHEN  studying   religious   pictures,  it   is  sometimes 
*       desirable  to  be  able  to  put  one's  own  theological 
convictions  temporarily  out  of  the  question. 

If  we  want  an  author  or  an  artist  to  lend  us  his  imagi- 
nation through  which  to  look,  we  must  naturally  consent 
to  look  from  his  standpoint,  putting  ourselves  into  a 
heartily  sympathetic  attitude.  It  is  manifestly  futile  to 
quarrel  with  old-time  artists,  even  if  they  did  think 
about  some  things  in  ways  different  from  our  own  ways. 
What  we  have  to  do,  in  cases  where  ideas  differ  regard- 
ing the  subjects  treated,  is,  of  course,  to  try  to  enter  as 
fully  as  possible  into  the  feeling  of  the  artist  or  of  the 
people  among  whom  the  artist  lived  and  for  whom  he 
frankly  painted.  Only  by  such  means  can  we  expect  to 
see  what  there  is  to  admire  in  the  work  of  art  itself. 


The  Madonna  and  Christ  Child,  shown  on  page  147.  have 
a  solemn,  old-time  air  about  them  ;  and  well  they  may,  for 
Botticelli l  painted  the  original  picture  within  a  few  years 
of  the  date  when  Columbus  first  sighted  the  Western 
world.     In  looking  at  it  for  the  first  time,  one  is  likely 

1  Sandro  Botticelli,  of  Florence  (1447-1515) .  This  picture  is  commonly 
distinguished  from  other  Madonnas  of  the  same  artist  by  calling  it  his 
Madonna  of  the  Louvre,  as  the  original  is  now  in  that  famous  gallery  in 
Paris. 

144 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  14;') 

to  be  impressed  both  by  the  sorrowful,  mysterious  beauty 
of  the  two  principal  figures  and  by  the  quaint  picturesque- 
ness  of  the  Virgin's  robe  and  transparent  veil  and  crown- 
ing halo.  There  is  something  about  the  picture  as  a 
whole  which  seems  to  bid  us  lower  our  voices  and  move 
gently  as  in  a  house  of  prayer ;  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
there  is  a  childlike  simplicity  in  its  pride  of  finished 
details,  which  makes  us  smile  with  half-amused  approval. 
There  are  depths  of  mystical,  heavenly  communion  in  the 
faces  of  Mother  and  Child.  There  is  the  frankest  self- 
satisfaction  in  the  artist's  elaborately  correct  showing  of 
the  ruffling  folds  of  the  gathered-up  stuff  under  the  book 
in  the  corner.  It  is  true,  the  book  may  have  been  meant 
to  remind  us  that  the  writers  of  the  olden  days  had  fore- 
told the  coming  of  a  Messiah  ;  the  closing  and  clasping 
of  the  book  may  have  served  in  the  painter's  fancy  to  sig- 
nify the  ending  of  the  old  revelation  with  the  beginning 
of  the  new.  All  the  same,  Sandro  Botticelli  took  keen 
delight  in  showing  us  how  cleverly  he  could  draw  the 
book  in  itself  and  for  itself,  with  studded  clasps  and 
covers  and  silken  wrappings. 

This  pure,  unworldly  image  of  the  Mother  is  worth 
long  study.  Her  exquisite  face  and  long,  slender  neck 
have  the  immaculate  delicacy  of  white  lilies  on  bending 
stalks.  But  her  expression  is  very  different  from  that  of 
most  of  the  Madonnas  we  commonly  see.  There  is  a  sub- 
tile self-distrust  and  reluctance  in  her  accepting  of  the 
destiny  imposed  upon  her.  It  is  the  look  of  one  who  will 
be  absolutely  faithful,  but  who  yet  secretly  cries  out  in 
her  girlish  heart  — 

"  Consider  well  if  virtue  be  in  me 
Sufficient,  ere  to  this  high  enterprise 
Thou  trust  me.  .  .  ." 


146  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

See  the  awe-struck  reverence  in  her  very  affection,  as 
shown  in  her  pose.  She  nowhere  willing]}"  touches  the 
baby  flesh  direct.  A  filmy  veil  interposes  between  her 
cheek  and  the  Child's  forehead,  even  in  her  caress ;  her 
hands  come  in  contact  only  with  His  draperies.  The 
Child,  for  His  part,  clings  to  her  with  the  most  winning 
of  baby  gestures.  The  touch  of  the  dimpled  hand  on 
the  Mother's  neck  is  charmingly  true  to  child  nature. 
AVe  can  supply  for  ourselves  in  imagination  the  position 
of  the  other  hand,  which  the  artist  did  not  show.  The 
chubby  awkwardness  of  the  feet,  too,  is  something  which 
appeals  at  once  to  every  lover  of  babyhood's  enchanting 
curves  and  colors.  And  yet  there  is,  in  those  great  eyes 
fixed  on  the  Mother's  face,  something  more  than  the  solemn 
questioning  that  awes  us  in  an  every-day  baby's  eyes.  It 
is  a  look  so  full  of  wonderful  meaning  that  the  girl 
Mother  can  hardly  bear  to  meet  it.  One  almost  imagines 
those  delicately  cut  lips  of  hers  quivering  with  feelings 
that  never  could  be  put  into  common  human  speech. 

The  little  St.  John  in  the  background,  with  the  sheep- 
skin mantle  over  his  shoulders,  looks  like  a  woodland  elf, 
or  rather  like  some  shy,  shaggy  little  animal  sidling  up  to 
you  witli  hesitating  curiosity,  and  lingering  a  minute  to 
be  stroked  before  it  bounds  away  out  of  reach.  Yet, 
when  we  look  longer  at  the  face,  we  see  more  spirituality 
in  it.  Is  it  spirituality,  or  is  it  the  sort  of  dumb  devo- 
tion which  a  dog  lavishes  on  a  child  master?  It  is  a 
strange  type  of  face,  tins  little  St.  John  —  a  fascinating 
type.  Botticelli  himself  was  evidently  fascinated  by  it, 
for  he  used  it  again  and  again  in  other  works. 

The  background  of  this  picture  has  a  great  deal  to  give 
us.  That  clear  expanse  of  sky,  against  which  tree  trunks, 
masses  of  shrubbery,  and  rose  sprays  stand  in  silent  sil- 


MADONNA    OF   THE   LOUVRE.  —  Botticelli. 


148  HOW  TO  ENJOY  PICTURES 

houette,  gives  one  the  emotional  effect  of  a  certain  sort  of 
afterglow,  which  most  of  ns  have  known  and  loved. 
There  is  a  mysterious  charm  about  this  look  in  a  western 
sky  after  the  sun  has  gone  down,  while  the  sky  is  still 
aglow  with  a  clear,  still  radiance,  when  every  object 
between  us  and  the  sky  stands  darkly  outlined  with 
wonderful  sharpness  against  the  light  :  a  radiance 
utterly  different  from  the  radiance  of  full  sunshine  ;  a 
sharpness  of  line  utterly  different  from  the  sharpness  of 
midday  shadows.  It  always  seems  to  have  some  mysteri- 
ous  significance  of  its  own,  if  only  we  could  understand 
it  —  like  the  look  of  one  turning  at  the  door  to  say 
Remember  ! 

It  seems  as  if,  away  back  in  the  fifteenth  centurjr, 
Botticelli  saw  in  this  strange  yet  common  enough  look  of 
the  sky  just  what  we  ourselves  have  seen  in  it.  Perhaps 
he  saw  it  one  night  in  Florence  after  he  had  heard  Fra 
Savonarola  preach,  and  while  he  was  walking  home,  his 
mind  half  full  of  mediaeval  theology  and  half  full  of  his 
beloved  paint-pots  and  brushes.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he 
put  into  this  picture  for  us  a  hint  of  just  such  a  mys- 
terious sky-message.  It  is  precisely  the  light  for  the 
shrinkingly  human  loveliness  of  this  young  mother  gaz- 
ing into  the  baby  eyes  of  One  Divine. 

This  old  master  had  a  fine  eye  for  beauty  of  line.  We 
feel  that  in  looking  at  the  separate  faces  and  figures,  and  it 
can  be  traced  also  in  the  relation  of  one  part  of  the  picture 
to  other  parts.  One  line  flows  into  another  just  as  the  line 
of  a  leaf  twig  flows  into  that  of  the  main  stem,  or  as  the  fine 
lines  of  the  fronds  of  a  feather  flow  into  the  line  of  the 
midrib  or  main  stalk,  i.e.  without  break  or  abrupt  change. 
(Figure  2.)  It  is  interesting  to  trace  this  "flow"  of  line 
in  the  picture.     Take,  for  example,   the   outline  of  the 


PICTURES   WITH  RELIGIOUS  THEMES 


149 


Fig.  2. 


crown  of  the  Virgin's  head.  Its  curve  is  continued  by 
the  filmy  folds  of  the  part  of  the  veil  resting  on  her  neck  ; 
the  baby  arm  takes  it  up,  and 
then,  with  a  new  sweep,  it  in- 
cludes the  Child's  body,  the 
timidly  protecting  right  hand  of 
the  Mother,  and  the  baby  feet, 
the  line  returning  on  itself,  like 
a  loose,  curly  tendril,  in  the  em- 
broidered edges  of  the  Virgin's 
quaint,  big  oversleeve. 

Again,  there  is  a  beautiful 
planning  (or  artistic  happening  ; 
perhaps  this  old  painter  did  not 
consciously  think  it  out,  but, 
guided  by  his  cultivated  instinct  for  beauty,  builded 
better  than  he  knew  at  the  moment)  in  the  main  lines  of 
the  group  made  by  the  two  children.    The  large,  sweeping 

curve  of  the  embroidered  sleeve 
hem  can  be  traced  upward,  and 
then  to  the  left  over  the  heads 
of  both  the  Christ  Child  and 
the  St.  John,  enclosing  them 
in  an  almost  complete  oval,  as 
shown  in  the  traced  outline. 
(Figure  3.)  Oval  curves  like 
these  are  universally  beloved 
by  artists  and  others  who  have 
made  any  great  study  of  beauty 
in  form.  Compared  with  the 
oval,  a  circle  is  quite  a  roly- 
poly,  matter-of-fact  affair.  The  curves  of  a  circle  are 
absolutely  and  always  the  same.     The  circle  tells  us  its 


Fig.  3. 


150  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

story  of  line  at  a  glance  and  has  no  more  left  to  tell.  But 
the  oval  has  the  charm  of  variety.  Here  its  curves  are 
round  and  robust  —  there  they  subtly  relax  ;  again,  they 
o-ather  themselves  into  the  most  graceful  of  arches.  Under 
all  these  caprices  it  has  its  own  serene  plan  how  to  come 
out.  It  is  no  wonder  that  sculptors  and  painters  see  in 
it  vast  possibilities  of  charm. 

It  would  evidently  have  been  an  unpleasing  thing  to 
show  these  oval  curves  complete  in  this  picture  of  the 
Madonna.  It  would  have  broken  up  the  tender  oneness 
of  mother  and  child  for  the  sake  of  an  artificial  conceit  ; 
and,  again,  the  complete  tracing  of  it  would  have  been 
much  less  attractive  than  a  hint,  as  here,  —  a  hint  to  be 
followed  out  by  our  own  imagination.  The  picture 
seems  to  belong  to  us  more  completely  when  we  have 
thus  hunted  up  the  key  and  peeped  into  one  or  two  of  its 
ecret  drawers. 

The  tree  trunks  in  the  upper  background  of  the  picture 
serve  still  another  purpose  besides  that  of  helping  to  give 
us  that  sense  of  mysterious  meaning  in  the  sky  which  we 
have  already  noticed.  Suggesting,  as  they  do,  foliage 
and  open  air  still  higher,  they  put  plenty  of  breathing- 
space  into  the  picture  and  prevent  it  from  looking 
crowded  at  the  top.  Without  them,  it  is  not  impossible 
that  the  head  of  the  Virgin,  with  her  rather  substantial 
halo,  might  seem  too  nearly  touching  the  upper  edge  of 
the  picture.  These  vertical  lines  of  the  tree  trunks  carry 
the  top  of  the  picture  higher,  on  the  same  principle  which 
makes  a  vertical-striped  garment  give  a  person  the  effect 
of  being  taller.  The  painter  evidently  took  great  pains 
with  all  these  details.  See  how  he  saved  the  large,  com- 
paratively unbroken  space  in  the  lower  right-hand  corner 
from  monotony  by  putting  in  an  unobtrusive  suggestion 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  ]~>\ 

of  the  carved  chair  on  which  the  Mother  sits.  It  is 
evidently  a  bit  of  her  chair,  yet  at  the  same  time  it  is  a 
beautiful  bit  of  ornament  for  the  picture-corner,  put  in 
somewhat  as  a  monk,  at  work  copying  a  sacred  manuscript . 
might  fill  up  a  blank  corner  of  a  page  with  a  decorative 
scroll,  just  for  the  sake  of  added  pleasantness  to  the 
reader's  eye. 

Quite  different  in  its  general  style  is  the  Holy  Family, 
by  Murillo,1  on  page  153.  Elizabeth  kneels  at  one  side, 
her  left  arm  affectionately  clasping  the  little  St.  John. 
The  Christ  Child,  standing  on  His  Mother's  knee,  steadies 
Himself  with  one  hand  on  her  breast,  and,  with  the  other, 
takes  from  John  (His  prophet-to-be)  a  cross,  the  symbol 
of  His  laying  down  of  life.  Above,  in  the  clouds,  the 
Father  is  seen,  stretching  out  His  hands  in  benediction  ; 
and  midway  between  Him  and  the  lower  group  a  dove 
is  poised  in  air,  emblematic  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
lamb  stands  for  purity,  innocence,  and  self-sacrifice.  In 
the  lack  of  any  more  detailed  explanation  of  the  scroll 
in  John's  hand,  Ave  may  assume  that  it  was  meant  to 
remind  us  of  the  ancient  Scriptures  and  their  Messianic 
prophecies. 

Murillo  is  said  to  have  been  a  man  of  exceptional 
devoutness,  painting  his  religious  pictures  in  the  same 
spirit  in  which  he  said  his  prayers.  And,  besides,  he 
was,  like  Abou  ben  Adhem,  one  who  loved  his  fellow- 
men.  He  delighted  in  the  simple  types  of  humanity  to 
be  met  with  every  day,  —  common  Avorking  people,  peas- 
ants, and  street  urchins,  even  beggars  sunning  themselves 

1  Bartolome  Est^ban  Murillo,  one  of  the  old  masters  of  Spain  (1618- 
1682).  The  original  painting  is  now  in  the  Louvre.  Another  famous 
picture  by  this  same  artist  is  shown  on  page  175. 


152  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

lazily  in  a  corner  ;  and  he  used  their  faces  over  and  over 
again  in  his  various  pictures,  even  of  sacred  subjects. 
There  is  a  certain  frank  lovableness  about  all  the  figures 
in  this  particular  picture  which  makes  it  go  to  one's  heart. 
We  do  not  wonder  that  the  original  painting  attracts 
admiring  travellers,  and  that  photographs  and  prints  of 
it  find  their  way  quite  around  the  world. 

The  Mother's  clasp  of  the  Child  shows  something  of 
the  same  reverential  element  that  is  noticeable  in  Botti- 
celli's Madonna  of  the  Louvre  (page  147)  ;  there  is  the 
same  shielding  of  the  baby  flesh  from  the  direct  touch 
of  her  hands,  by  the  interposition  of  drapery.  But  notice 
how  different  the  Mother's  face  is  in  the  two  pictures. 
It  is  a  serious  sweetness  we  have  here,  but  not  a  look 
of  sorrow  or  of  dread,  —  rather  a  half-shy,  half-proud, 
girlish  confidence  in  her  Son.  Notice  how  the  artist 
managed  to  have  her,  though  holding  Him  protectingly 
in  her  lap,  yet  look  distinctly  up  to  Him.  Although  the 
little  group  seems  charmingly  simple  and  informal,  all 
the  people  nearly  on  a  level  with  each  other  and  with 
the  spectator,  with  no  enthronement  of  the  chief  person- 
ages to  separate  them  from  the  others,  still,  Mary,  Eliza- 
beth, and  the  little  John  all  have  to  look  up  to  see  the 
Child's  face. 

And  notice  how  wonderfully  significant  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  older  woman's  eyes  and  mouth.  Does  it  not 
seem  to  express  relief  and  satisfaction  as  well  as  affec- 
tionate reverence,  as  if  she  were  thinking,  —  "  The  won- 
derful Child  indeed  has  come.  I  am  an  old  woman  ;  I 
have  Avorked  and  waited  a  weaiy,  long  time.  But  surely 
this  is  He  at  last "  ? 

The  Christ  Child  Himself,  with  His  babyish  dimples 
and  His  serious,  dark  eyes,  His  appealing,  childish  help- 


llol.V    FAMILY. —Murillo. 


154  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

lessness  and  ye*t  His  commanding  dignity,  is  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  the  children  this  old  master  drew 
with  such  affectionate  pains.  Just  see  how  His  more 
refined  and  spiritual  type  of  face  is  set  off  by  the 
commoner  boyish  features  of  John.  John  is  a  kind  of 
small  boy  that  every  primary  school-teacher  knows. 
They  had  no  primary  schools  and  compulsory  education 
laws  in  Spain  two  centuries  ago  ;  the  urchin  who  served 
as  model  for  this  little  fellow  doubtless  played  all  day 
in  the  streets  at  his  own  sweet  will,  and  was  not  greatly 
scolded  if  he  came  home  dirty  at  night. 

We  of  to-day  wonder  a  little  at  the  naive  daring 
which  ventured  on  a  definite,  visible  representation  of  our 
Father.  But  in  the  days  when  this  picture  was  painted 
most  people  had  a  more  blunt,  childlike  way  of  putting 
these  things  than  we  have  now.  To  this  devout  old 
Spaniard's  imagination  there  seemed  nothing  irreverent 
in  figuring  the  One  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being  as  a  bearded  man,  with  sleeves  of  colored  stuff 
draping  His  outstretched  arms  ;  and,  indeed,  as  we  feel 
the  benignity  of  the  venerable  face  and  the  comforting 
assurance  of  the  gesture  which  crowns  the  picture,  we 
would  not  wish  it  changed. 

The  form  of  the  Father  crowns  the  picture  in  more 
than  one  sense  ;  for,  besides  its  significance  in  idea,  its 
lines  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  artistic  impressive- 
ness  of  the  picture  as  a  whole.  We  can  test  this  for 
ourselves  b}r  laying  a  sheet  of  paper  across  the  top  of 
the  page,  coming  just  far  enough  downwards  to  hide  the 
dove.  What  we  have  left  is  certainly  a  beautiful  picture, 
but  it  is  not  the  same  as  before.  The  Child  is  as  win- 
ning as  ever,  the  Mother  as  lovely,  Elizabeth  breathes 
the  same  long  sigh  of  satisfaction,  yet  something  is  lack- 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  loo 

ing.  Is  it  the  feeling  of  airy  space  and  Light  and  color? 
Let  us  sec  it  once  more,  complete  as  Murillo  designed  it. 
Yes  ;  it  is  better  so.  We  do  not  wish  to  lose  that  glow 
of  light  and  color  up  in  the  left-hand  corner  of  the 
picture.  We  could  not  quite  spare  the  cherubs  at  the 
right,  their  dimples  melting  into  clouds  and  then  taking 
shape  again  out  of  the  mist.  And  now  Ave  see,  besides, 
that  the  head  and  downstretched  arms  of  the  Father, 
repeating  the  arched  or  pyramidal  outline  of  the  three 
heads  grouped  just  below,  emphasize  this  outline  and 
unobtrusively  strengthen  the  spiritual  significance  of  the 
Child's  central  position  above  the  others.  This  detail 
of  the  composition  is  in  one  sense  a  trifle,  in  another  sense 
it  is  far  from  being  a  small  matter.  It  is  like  having 
just  the  right  bit  of  harmony  for  an  accompaniment  to 
the  voice.  If  it  is  taken  away,  we  begin  to  realize  how 
much  it  had  to  do  witli  the  perfectness  of  the  whole. 


Another  famous  picture  of  Mary  with  the  baby  Christ 
is  known  as  The  Madonna  of  the  Burgomaster.1  The 
picture  takes  this  name  from  the  fact  of  its  having  been 
ordered  by  Jacob  Meyer,  then  burgomaster  of  Basle,  who 
had  himself,  his  first  and  second  wives,  and  three  children 
introduced  into  the  picture  as  accessory  figures,  in  devo- 
tional attitudes.  There  is  a  tradition  that  the  picture 
was  a  thank  offering  to  the  Virgin  for  the  recovery  of  the 
Meyer  baby  from  some  dangerous  sickness.     Whether  or 

1  Painted  by  Hans  Holbein  the  younger  (son  of  another  Hans  Holbein), 
who  lived  from  1497  to  1543.  He  was  German  by  birth,  but  travelled 
widely  for  those  times,  and  did  a  good  deal  of  work  in  England.  Of  this 
particular  picture  two  slightly  different  copies  exist,  this  one  at  Dresden 
and  another  at  Darmstadt. 


156  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

no  this  be  true,  it  is  on  record  that  Burgomaster  Meyer 
remained  a  devoted  son  of  the  Mother  Church  through 
stormy  times  when  the  new  thoughts  and  theories  of  the 
Lutheran  movement  were  causing  serious  upheavals  in  the 
church  and  in  society.  Whether  or  no  we  sympathize 
with  him  in  his  views,  we  honor  his  evident  loyalty  to 
what  he  felt  to  be  the  right.  His  homely,  commonplace 
features  are  lighted  up  into  something  almost  beautiful 
by  the  spirit  of  honest  devotion  shining  through  them  ; 
and  the  somewhat  stubborn  build  of  his  face  makes  one 
feel  sure  he  was  master  in  the  family.  If  he  said  "  as  for 
me  and  my  house  we  will  serve  the  Lord  "  after  any  one 
particular  fashion,  we  may  be  sure  there  would  be  no 
straying  away  from  that  one  path  on  the  part  of  members 
of  the  Meyer  household  ! 

See  how  the  somewhat  formal  arrangement  of  the 
group  expresses  at  once  the  Virgin's  dominance  and  her 
benign  protection.  She  stands  on  the  same  carpeted  floor 
upon  which  the  others  kneel,  but  her  attitude  brings  her 
head  and  shoulders  above  them,  and  the  gently  rounding 
arch  of  the  odd  little  alcove  or  niche  where  she  stands 
has  the  effect  of  adding  a  good  deal  of  stateliness  to  her 
really  very  mild  and  gentle  figure.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  sweeping  folds  of  her  mantle  almost  enclose  the  near- 
est worshippers,  and  the  columns  on  either  side  of  the 
alcove,  with  the  low  walls  running'  off  to  left  and  right, 
suggest  the  idea  of  protecting  arms  ready  to  ward  off 
danger  from  this  faithful  little  company. 

See  what  a  sweet  and  lovable  face  the  Mother  has,  and 
how  exquisitely  pure  and  unworldly  her  whole  air  is,  in 
spite  of  the  modish  crown  with  which  the  German  sim- 
plicity of  those  times  thought  to  honor  her. 

The  Christ  Child  here  is  a  rather  sad  little  figure,  His 


MADONNA    OF  THE   BURGOMASTER. —  Holbein. 


158  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

head  resting  wearily  on  the  Mother's  breast  and  one  hand 
stretched  out  in  benediction.     There  have  been  several 
different    interpretations    of    this    detail    of   the    picture. 
The  story  has  been  told  that,  when  the  Virgin  was  ap- 
pealed to  for  help  during  the  sickness  of  the  burgomas- 
ter's baby  boy,  she  took  the  child  up  into  her  own  arms 
for  a  little  while  to  cure   him,  letting  the  infant  Christ 
take  his  place  temporarily  in  the  cradle.     According  to 
this  fanciful  idea,  the  child  in  Mary's  arms  may  be  really 
the  ailing  baby,  cuddled  and  comforted  back  towards  life 
and  health.     But  it  seems  more   likely,  since   we  know 
something  of  what  stormy  times  those  were  just  then  in 
ecclesiastical  history,  that  the  Child's  weary  attitude  was 
meant  only  to  express  the  sorrow  supposed  by  the  artist's 
devout  patron  to  be  felt  in  heaven  over  the  strife  and  dis- 
cord stirred  up  by  men  in  connection  with  church  affairs. 
The  kneeling  woman  nearest  the  Virgin  is  usually  sup- 
posed to  be  the  deceased  wife  of  Meinherr  Meyer,   ar- 
rayed in  her  burial  clothes.     Beside  her  kneels  the  second 
wife,  an  anxious,  conscientious-looking  dame  in  a  fashion- 
able collar  and  head-dress  (the  Meyers  were  prosperous 
people,  that  is  evident).     In  the  foreground,  slender  and 
demure    in    her    festival   gown,    and   with   her  own    best 
head-dress  set  carefully  over  her  close-braided  hair,  kneels 
the  daughter  of  the  house.     The  half-grown  son  and  the 
debatable  baby  are  grouped  with  the  father  on  the  oppo- 
site side. 

Considering  that  the  artist  undertook  to  put  three  peo- 
ple on  each  side  of  the  Virgin,  --one  behind  the  other,  the 
older  ones  in  the  background,  and  the  younger  ones  in 
front,  it  is  quite  remarkable  how  successfully  he  avoided 
any  disagreeable  monotony  in  the  poses.  We  find  in  the 
left-hand  group  each  figure  proceeding  from  back  to  front 


PICTUEES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  159 

is  moved  a  little  nearer  the  centre  of  the  picture.  In  the 
right-hand  group,  the  relative  places  of  the  three  women 
are  entirely  different.  The  shrouded  figure  in  the  back- 
ground is  nearest  to  the  centre  of  the  composition;  the 
living  wife  kneels  almost  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  picture, 
and  the  prim  young  girl  only  a  shade  further  forward. 
Notice  also,  that,  although  there  is  great  decorum  in  all 
the  faces,  no  two  are  looking  in  just  the  same  direction, 
and  no  two  have  the  same  expression.  Each  keeps  its 
individuality,  and  so  the  picture  is  saved  from  any  stiffly 
"  set "  appearance. 

We  cannot  help  wondering  whether  that  remarkable 
wrinkle  in  the  carpet  was  put  in  for  the  same  purpose,  of 
avoiding  too  stiff  regularity,  or  whether  perhaps  the 
painter  was  merely  amusing  himself  here,  as  he  finished 
the  details  of  his  drawing,  trying  to  see  and  show  the 
effect  on  the  elaborate  border  pattern  of  the  rug  if  it  were 
rolled  up  into  alternate  waves  and  depressions.  Such 
experiments  are  always  interesting  to  any  one  who  has  a 
quick  eye  for  alterations  in  the  appearance  of  form  ;  but  it 
takes  a  skilful  hand  as  well  to  show  the  transformations 
truly  to  other  eyes. 

On  each  side  of  the  picture  the  arrangement  of  the 
ornamental  pillars  and  the  background  wall  leaves  a  little 
open  space,  and  here  we  find  the  painter  seizing  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  bit  of  ornamental  leaf  tracery.  But  see  again 
how  cleverly  he  avoided  making  the  two  spaces  monoto- 
nously alike.  (We  expect  the  two  pillars  to  match  ;  that 
is  the  accepted  thing  in  an  architectural  composition  like 
this  alcove.  But  it  is  naturally  different  with  the  sur- 
rounding spaces  and  with  family  portraits.)  In  one  case 
he  shows  the  complete  right  angle  made  by  wall  and  pil- 
lar, in  the  other  he  hides   the   corner  by  Frau   Meyer's 


160  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTUKES 

head-dress.     And  see  the  interesting  differences  between 
the  outlines  of  the  leafy  twigs  so  gracefully  silhouetted 
against  the  light  backgrounds.     Either  one  would  make 
a  beautiful  decoration  for  a  book-cover  or  an  inlaid  panel. 
It  is  interesting,  besides,  to  see  how  beautifully  Holbein 
managed  the  arrangement  of  light  and  dark  colors  in  this 
picture.    With  eight  necessarily  light-colored  faces  appear- 
ing against  a  rather  dark  background,  it  took  a  good  deal 
of  artistic  sense  and  feeling  to  avoid  an  effect  as  of  light 
spots  and  splashes  dotted  over  the  given  space  ;  but  the 
painter   did  very  successfully  avoid   any  such  "spotty' 
look.     The  figure  of  the  Christ  Child,  with  its  delicate 
variations  of  light  and  shade,  leads  the  eye  naturally  from 
the  strong  light  of  the  mother's  face  to  that  of  her  hands  ; 
and  the  middle  tone  of  her  sleeves  and  girdle  makes  a 
gradual  transition  back  to  the  darker  masses  of  her  robe. 
In  both  groups  of  worshippers  we  find  the  masses  of  strong 
light  unobtrusively  connected  with  each  other  by  the  ar- 
rangement of  attitudes  and  costumes,  so  that,  while  the 
contrasts  between  light  and  dark  are  pronounced  and  vig- 
orous, they  are  never  harsh  or  startling. 

If  we  take  one  last  look  at  the  picture  as  a  whole,  we 
feel  its  simple  dignity  very  clearly.  Though  we  actually 
see  only  a  little  part  of  the  vertical  edges  of  the  alcove 
and  of  the  pillars,  we  are  half-conseiously  aware  of  their 
presence  complete,  suggested  as  they  are  by  the  long  lines 
of  the  Virgin's  erect  figure  ;  and  this  loftiness  of  line 
gives  us  a  dim  sense  of  lofty  thought  and  feeling.  Then 
the  horizontal  lines  of  the  pillar  capitals,  reemphasized  by 
the  level  band  of  darker  space  above,  give  us  somehow  the 
impression  of  strength.  (Do  not  broad,  square  shoulders 
on  a  man  always  give  us  a  feeling  of  strength?)  And 
the  gentle  outline  of  the  young  Mother's  head,  repeated 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS  THEMES  161 

by  the  curve  of  her  diadem,  and  again  (as  rippling  circles 
widen  in  the  water)  by  the  overarching  curve  of  the 
shell-shaped  roof  above  her,  softens  the  severity  of  plain 
verticals  and  horizontals,  and  lends  a  gracious  sort  of  bene- 
diction to  the  whole. 


Van  Dyck's  *  Madonna  with  the  Donors  divides  our 
interest  quite  evenly  between  the  holy  Mother  and  Child 
and  the  portraits  of  the  two  patrons  by  whose  order  the 
picture  was  painted.  It  is  difficult  now  to  trace  with  any 
certainty  the  identity  of  these  "  donors "  ;  we  are  not 
sure  where  the  picture  was  originally  hung  after  its  com- 
pletion. We  only  know  that,  in  the  days  when  kings  and 
princes  were  ordering  pictures  from  this  famous  painter, 
none  but  the  rich  could  afford  to  pay  for  the  work  he 
did.  This  particular  picture  may  have  been  ordered  for 
the  adornment  of  a  private  chapel  or  oratory,  —  such  as  was 
often  a  part  of  a  great  man's  establishment,  —  or,  as  the 
word  "  donors  "  implies,  it  may  have  been  intended  as  a 
gift  to  some  church,  —  such  a  gift  as  would  take  the 
form  of  a  memorial  window  if  made  to-day  in  our  own 
country. 

This  representation  of  the  Madonna,  contrasted  with 
those  chosen  from  Botticelli  (page  147),  Murillo  (page 
153),  Raphael  (page  169),  and  Holbein  (page  157),  shows 
what  a  wide  variation  of  treatment  the  main  subject  receives 
according  to  the  time  and  the  place,  the  temperament  and 
the  training,  of  the  artist.  Van  Dyck  was  not  only  a  man 
of  great  gifts  in  his  own  profession  :   he  was  also  a  man  of 

1  Anthony  Van  Dyck  (1  ",90-1041),  one  of  the  most  famous  Flemish 
painters ;  a  pupil  of  Rubens.  This  picture  is  now  in  the  Louvre  at 
Paris. 

M 


162  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

elegant  accomplishments,  of  wide  travel  and  large  acquaint- 
ance ;  a  man  of  the  world  in  an  era  when  European 
society  was  given  to  all  sorts  of  gay  extravagance;  a 
courtier  knighted  by  King  Charles  I,  of  England,  at  the 
time  when  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans  in  self-imposed 
exile  were  building  their  bare,  rough  log-houses  on  the 
Massachusetts  shore. 

The  virgin  Mother  as  we  see  her  here  is  as  far  as 
possible  from  being  a  Jewish  peasant  girl.  For  that  mat- 
ter, artists  have  very  seldom  kept  to  historical  facts  about 
her  nationality  and  social  station.  They  have  had  other 
ideas  about  her  which  they  cared  much  more  to  emphasize. 
Van  Dyck's  fastidious  preference  for  what  was  refined 
and  dainty  made  him  give  the  Mother  the  look  of  a 
gracious,  high-bred  gentlewoman,  simply  clad,  as  one 
with  simple  tastes,  but  never  to  be  mistaken  for  the 
daughter  of  common  working  folk.  She  holds  the  Child 
on  her  lap,  not  in  any  close  embrace  of  passionate  affec- 
tion, and  not  with  any  mystical  awe  of  His  person,  but 
with  a  quiet  confidence  as  if  she  knew  He  must  soon  be 
about  His  Father's  business,  and  she  would  not  hold  Him 
back  from  a  divine  mission.  He  for  His  part  holds  the 
Mother's  ringers  with  one  dimpled  baby  hand,  and  with 
the  other  touches,  in  a  rose-leaf  sort  of  caress,  the  cheek 
of  the  man  who  kneels  close  by.  He  is  a  live,  warm, 
human  baby,  "trailing  clouds  of  glory"  to  be  sure,  but 
showing  them  only  to  the  inward  eye  of  the  beholder. 
He  wears  no  halo,  He  carries  no  cross,  His  benediction  is 
so  much  like  the  blessing  of  any  dear  baby's  affectionate 
touch  that  apparently  none  but  His  own  see  anything  to 
wonder  over. 

It  would  seem  as  if  Van  Dyck  amused  himself  by 
indicating,  in  a  delicately  satirical  fashion,  which  one  of 


MADONNA   AND   CHILD   WITH   DONORS.  —Van  Dyck. 


104  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

the  kneeling  donors  was  His  own  and  which  one  was  a 
stranger. 

Just  look  at  the  man.  His  whole  body  bends  eagerly 
forward;  his  hands  are  devoutly  joined;  his  face  —  in 
spite  of  the  rakish  little  beard  and  the  loose  love  locks 
which  speak  of  fashion  and  frivolity — shows  complete 
absorption  in  one  idea  or  one  ideal  that  has  newly  dawned 
upon  him.  He  has  not  been  very  good  all  his  life. 
No  ;  but  he  does  have  in  him  the  possibilities  of  a  fine 
type  of  manhood.  If  the  Christ  message  had  come  to  him 
earlier  in  life  ! 

Ami  his  elegant  lady  wife  with  her  ruff  and  her  rings, 
her  jewelled  buttons  and  her  lace-bordered  cuffs  ?  She  too 
is  kneeling,  but  her  hands  are  studiously  arranged  to  dis- 
play her  rings  (to  be  quite  just,  this  may  mean  vanity  on 
Van  Dyck's  part  rather  than  on  the  lady's,  for  he  was 
notoriously  fond  of  showing  off  beautiful  hands)  ;  her 
head  is  calmly  erect  above  her  expensive  buttons.  No 
sudden  gusts  of  pious  emotion,  if  you  please,  for  the 
wearer  of  that  marvellous  ruff.  Most  significant  of  all, 
her  eyes,  —  as  we  see  when  we  trace  their  gaze,  —  do  not 
regard  the  Child  or  His  Mother  or  the  companion  of  her 
mature  prosperities  ;  they  look  calmly,  placidly  off  into 
space,  without  the  slightest  consciousness  of  the  spiritual 
drama  going  on  at  her  elbow.  Not  that  she  is  a  bad- 
hearted  woman  —  not  at  all.  She  looks  like  a  "capable  " 
house-mistress,  a  person  who  could  be  depended  upon  for 
the  orderly  performance  of  every-day  duties  and  the 
maintenance  of  a  high  standard  of  dignified  respectability. 
But  how  hopelessly  wooden  !  We  may  be  sure  she  never 
saw  anything  to  which  to  object  in  her  own  portrait,  as 
painted  by  the  most  fashionable  artist  of  the  day.  Her 
ruff  and  her  laces  and  the  rest  of  her  matronly    finery 


PICTUEES   WITH    KKLIGIOUS  THEMES  It',.', 

were  carefully  immortalized  ;  and  as  for  her  face,  did  not 
all  the  neighbors  declare  with  respectful  admiration  thai 
it  was  as  natural  as  life?  There  is  little  doubt  that  she 
was  perfectly  satisfied. 

There  is  one  more  curious  bit  of  character  study  in  this 
picture.  At  what  is  the  Virgin  looking  ?  If  we  examine 
the  picture  closely,  it  seems  evident  that  her  gentle,  ques- 
tioning gaze  rests,  not  on  the  devout,  repentant  man, 
eager  to  vow  allegiance  to  her  Son  :  she  leaves  him  in 
those  baby  hands  ;  it  rests  on  the  figure  of  the  decorous 
wife  beside  him,  who  has  no  passionate  sins  to  be  repented, 
and  no  passionate  love  to  lift  her  above  the  level  of 
respectable  commonplace. 

Van  Dyck  gave  a  great  deal  of  pains  to  other  things 
in  this  picture  besides  the  interesting  expression  of  atti- 
tudes, gestures,  and  faces.  He  meant  that  the  picture, 
as  a  whole,  should  be  a  pleasure  to  the  eye  ;  and  we  can 
see,  even  in  this  little  black-and-white  copy,  a  part  of  his 
idea  in  the  composition.  The  main  light  in  the  picture 
evidently  comes  from  some  source  off  at  the  left ;  we  can 
trace  this  by  the  way  shade  falls  on  the  faces.  The  effect 
of  light  is  carried  on  across  the  picture  into  the  open  sky 
in  the  upper  right-hand  corner.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
find  large  spaces  or  masses  of  distinctly  darker  color  ex- 
tending across  from  the  upper  left-hand  corner  to  the 
lower  right-hand  corner.  There  is  a  consistent  idea  in 
this  ;  it  did  not  simply  happen.  But,  to  make  these  con- 
trasted portions  of  light-colored  space  and  darker-colored 
space  blend  happily  together,  some  further  thought  had 
to  be  given  to  their  details.  So  the  dark  draperies  be- 
hind the  Mother  were  carried  out  a  little  way  beyond  the 
line  of  her  shoulder  in  drooping,  slightly  oblique  folds, 
and  their  effect  of  darkness  was  delicately  continued  still 


166  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

further  by  branches  of  foliage  whose  irregular  outlines 
and  openings  make  a  graceful  transition  from  the  heavy 
folds  of  hanging  stuff  to  the  airiness  of  the  floating 
clouds  in  the  sky.  The  sky  space  itself,  being  almost 
an  even  square  of  light  in  the  upper  right-hand  corner, 
might  easily  have  given  the  picture  an  awkward  look,  as 
if  a  quarter  of  its  space  were  unfinished  ;  but  the  pro- 
jecting foliage  and  the  chubby  cherubs,  with  their  gay 
variety  of  curves  and  their  combination  of  lighted  and 
shadowed  surface,  save  this  quarter  of  the  picture  from 
looking  bare  and  empty.  They  also  serve  to  attract  the 
eye  upward  from  the  monotonous,  level  line  made  by 
the  three  heads  of  the  Child  and  the  donors,  and  so  add 
greatly  to  the  pleasant  impression  of  the  picture  as  a 
whole. 


Among  the  hundreds  of  pictures  of  the  Virgin  and  the 
Christ  Child,  there  is  probably  none  more  widely  known 
than  Raphael's  1  Sistine  Madonna,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  the  Dresden  Madonna.  Details  of  the  picture  are 
often  published  by  themselves,  —  the  cherubs  are  familiar 
to  almost  everybody, — yet,  perhaps,  some  of  us  have  not 
yet  seen  in  the  picture,  as  a  whole,  all  that  we  might  see 
to  admire  and  enjoy. 

The  picture  was  painted  for  a  little  company  of  people 
bound  by  vows  to  a  life  of  religious  devotion  and  self- 
denying  labor,  and  its  main  idea  is  that  of  a  Vision  of 

1  Raffaello  Sanzio,  of  Florence  (148o-1520),  one  of  the  most  widely 
known  and  admired  of  the  Italian  masters.  The  original  of  this  picture 
was  painted  for  the  Benedictine  monastery  of  St.  Sixtus  at  Piacenza,  in 
northern  Italy  ;  but  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was 
sold  by  the  monks  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony  and  taken  to  Dresden. 
Napoleon  seized  it,  and  carried  it  to  Paris  as  a  trophy  ;  but  it  was  after- 
wards returned,  and  is  in  the  Dresden  gallery  now. 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  107 

divine  love  to  cheer  the  down-hearted,  and  bring  new  in- 
spiration to  the  faithful.  From  this  point  of  view,  the 
curtain  arrangement  on  either  side  is  an  appropriate  bit 
of  detail,  helping  carry  out  the  idea  of  a  revelation-for- 
the-moment.  It  seems  as  if  the  heavy  folds  might  fall 
in  another  minute,  shutting  off  the  radiant  group  from 
our  sight. 

It  is  the  Mother  who  most  attracts  our  eyes.  The 
more  we  study  the  noble  proportions  of  her  figure,  and 
the  calm  benignity  of  her  serious  face,  the  more  we  are 
impressed  by  her  dignified  beauty.  The  image  of  a 
tall  woman,  standing  on  rolling  clouds,  might  well  have 
something  grotesque  about  it,  portrayed  by  a  common 
draughtsman;  but  see  what  a  master  did!  The  figure 
seems  to  be  pausing  for  an  instant  in  its  forivard  motion 
(motion  indicated  by  the  folds  of  the  draperies  blowing 
back  from  head  and  shoulder,  and  by  the  backward  sweep 
of  the  lower  draperies  around  knees  and  ankles),  and  this 
effect  of  forward  motion  so  balances  in  our  consciousness 
the  downward  pull  of  gravity  as  to  make  the  Virgin's  airy 
pose  seem  mechanically  possible  and  altogether  beautiful. 

The  artist  makes  us  look  up.  Even  when  we  hold  the 
picture  exactly  on  the  level  of  our  eyes,  we  have  a  sense 
of  looking  up  from  what  is  low  to  what  is  high.  Com- 
pare the  picture  in  this  respect  with  the  Spinner  of 
Maas  (page  107)  or  Rubens'  Wife  and  Children  (page 
87).  In  these  two  latter  pictures  we  see  the  portrayed 
people  as  if  we  were  frankly  on  the  same  level  with  them. 
But  here,  where  Raphael  made  the  page  for  us,  we  find 
ourselves  seeing  the  lower  side  of  the  Virgin's  arm  and 
the  Child's  thigh,  the  lower  surfaces  of  the  drapery  about 
her  head  and  her  elbow,  —  that  is  to  say,  we  see  the 
central  figures  of  the  picture  at  about  the  angle  at  which 


168  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

they  would  appear  if  we  were  kneeling  on  a  floor,  and 
they  appearing  above  a  church  altar.  And  this  sense  of 
looking  up  with  the  eyes  instinctively  associates  itself 
with  looking  "  up  "  in  a  spiritual  sense. 

Besides  this,  the  picture  gives  us  a  feeling  of  airy 
space,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  actual  picture  limits 
are  nearly  filled  with  details.  The  more  we  look  at  the 
central  figures  and  the  space  around  (the  original  has 
hosts  of  cherub  faces  in  the  background,  but  the  print 
shows  only  a  few  of  these  dimly  above  the  Mother's 
head),  the  more  we  feel  that  there  is  really  endless  room 
above  and  behind  and  around  them.  The  wind  that 
blows  aside  the  Virgin's  draperies  seems  to  speak  of  infi- 
nite energies  acting  through  infinite  spaces.  We  feel 
that  it  is  the  world  this  side  of  those  drooping  curtains 
which  is  small,  confined.  A  whole  boundless  universe 
belongs  to  that  Mother  and  her  Child. 

Raphael  painted  many  Madonnas  in  an  age  when  every- 
body tried  to  paint  Madonnas  ;  but  most  people  who  know 
this  one  well  agree  that  its  noble  beauty  has  a  certain 
impressiveness  not  to  be  found  in  any  other  picture.  For 
there  is  wisdom  as  well  as  sweetness,  energy  as  well  as 
purity,  in  the  lines  of  that  face  and  figure.  Those  wide- 
set  and  far-seeing  eyes  look  not  so  much  at  us  as  through 
our  present  selves  into  our  far-off  destiny.  Those  strong- 
arms  so  tenderly  upholding  and  cradling  the  Child  seem 
to  promise  protection  without  end  for  them  who  need. 

Raphael's  conception  of  the  Christ  Child  in  this  picture 
is  different  in  many  ways  from  the  Christ  Child  of  his 
other  Madonnas  and  those  of  his  brother  artists.  It  is 
interesting  to  compare  the  picture  with  those  of  Botti- 
celli, Holbein,  Murillo,  and  Van  Dyck  (pages  147,  153,  157, 
163).     We  have  here  no  dramatic  pose  or  gesture  on  the 


SISTINE  MADONNA.  — Raphael. 


170  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Child's  part,  —  many  people  think  He  is  less  beautiful  here 
than  in  other  famous  pictures,  —  but  there  is  something 
marvellously  winning  and  commanding  that  looks  out 
through  His  large  eyes,  lighting  up  the  baby  face  with 
solemn  meaning. 

The  accessory  figures  —  St.  Barbara  on  the  right,  and 
St.  Sixtus,  the  patron  of  the  monastery  for  which  the 
picture  was  painted,  on  the  left --have  a  place  both  by 
virtue  of  the  religious  idea  of  the  painting  and  on  account 
of  the  plan  of  its  composition  as  a  piece  of  beautiful  deco- 
ration. Saints  were  often  introduced  by  the  old  masters 
into  representations  of  the  Madonna,  carrying  out  the 
idea  of  their  mediation  between  the  divine  and  the  human. 
To  understand  the  significance  of  the  two  figures  intro- 
duced here,  we  must  turn  to  some  dictionary  of  names  or 
a  volume  of  lives  of  the  saints.  According  to  old  tradi- 
tions, Sixtus  was  a  bishop  of  the  church  at  Rome,  away 
back  in  the  third  century,  and  chose  death  by  imperial 
persecution  rather  than  disloyalty  to  his  faith.  What 
more  natural  for  the  brethren  at  Piacenza  than  the 
thought  of  the  old  man  for  whom  they  had  named  their 
house,  as  caring  for  them  up  in  Paradise  in  a  fatherly 
way,  and  praying  that  they  might  be  kept  faithful  too  ? 
As  for  the  stiffly  o-oro-eous  vestments  in  which  Sixtus 
appears,  we  must  grant  that 

"...  if  eyes  were  made  for  seeing, 
Then  beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being." 

There  is  probably  small  historic  authority  for  robing  a 
third-century  martyr  in  so  magnificent  a  fashion  ;  but  the 
heavy  folds  of  these  draperies  are  very  effective  in  their 
own  way.  That  ponderous,  three-story  tiara  resting  on 
the  parapet  has  its  technical  significance,  as  indicating  his 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  171 

pupal  rank.  The  artist  realized  this,  and  put  it  into  the 
picture  as  a  bit  of  decorative  detail  down  in  the  corner  ; 
but,  mark  well,  he  was  far  too  great  an  artist  to  spoil 
the  beautiful  outline  of  the  saint's  head  by  crowning 
him  with  so  heavy  a  construction  in  the  way  of  head- 
gear where  it  would  come  in  strong  relief  against  the 
light  ! 

Just  see  what  a  beautiful  old  head  this  is,  upturned 
with  such  dignified  humility  !  (By  the  way,  is  it  not 
strange  that  there  should  be  so  radical  a  difference  be- 
tween the  relations  of  age  to  beauty  in  the  respective 
cases  of  men  and  of  women  ?  If  a  man  has  any  genuine 
beauty  at  all,  he  usually  grows  handsomer  as  he  grows 
older.) 

St.  Barbara,  kneeling  on  the  other  side,  complements 
the  tribute  of  venerable  experience  with  that  of  youthful 
impulse.  The  tradition  attached  to  her  name  is  that  of  a 
beautiful  girl,  shut  up  in  a  lonely  castle  by  her  father, 
who  meant  to  keep  from  her  all  knowledge  of  the  new 
faith  called  by  Christ's  name.  (A  glimpse  of  the  castle 
is  seen  here  just  over  her  shoulder.)  But,  in  spite  of  all 
these  precautions,  Barbara  learned  the  story  of  the  Mas- 
ter, vowed  allegiance  to  Him,  and  allowed  the  exasperated 
father  to  take  her  life  rather  than  prove  false  to  the  light 
that  had  dawned  upon  her. 

Notice  what  exquisite  differences  of  detail  keep  this 
balanced  arrangement  of  the  two  saints  from  being  stiff 
or  "set."  We  have  already  noted  that  we  have  an  aged 
man  balanced  by  a  blooming  young  girl.  One  head  is  up- 
lifted and  shown  in  profile  with  upturned  eyes ;  the  other 
head  is  bent  downward  and  turned  almost  facing  us,  with 
the  eyelashes  sweeping  the  cheeks.  One  head  is  shaven  ; 
the  other  crowned  with  soft  braids.     One  figure  is  wrapped 


172  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

in  heavy,  official  vestments  reaching  to  the  chin,  and 
hanging  in  long,  sweeping  folds  ;  the  other  clad  in  simple, 
girlish  clothes,  with  bare  neck  and  shoulders,  the  lines  of 
her  draperies  falling  into  curves,  short  and  rounding  like 
ringlets  of  curly  hair.  The  attitudes  have  been  inter- 
preted by  critics  as  being  respectively  that  of  pleading 
for  a  blessing  on  the  monastery  brotherhood  (St.  Sixtus), 
and  of  inviting  the  faithful  to  join  in  adoration  of  the 
Vision  (St.  Barbara). 

Again,  the  looped-back  curtains  are  in  a  general  way 
symmetrically  arranged ;  but,  if  we  look  more  closely  at 
their  lines  and  colors,  we  find  there  is  no  dull,  mechan- 
ical "matching"  about  them.  No  line  on  the  one  side 
is  the  precise  duplicate  of  a  line  on  the  other  side, 
and  the  light  and  shade  effects  are  different  in  the  two 
cases. 

The  meditative  cherubs  down  below  are  so  beautiful  as 
to  need  little  other  excuse  for  being.  (Is  there  a  strong 
resemblance  between  the  right-hand  cherub  and  the  Child 
in  the  Mother's  arms  ?)  But,  if  we  look  at  the  picture  a 
little  further,  we  see  that  besides  being  so  charming  in 
themselves  they  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  beauty 
of  the  composition  as  a  whole.  Try  the  experiment  of 
cutting  a  slip  of  blank  paper  three-quarters  of  an  inch 
wide  and  two  inches  long,  and  laying  it  over  these  little 
fellows,  blotting  them  out  temporarily.  At  once  the 
picture  seems  unfinished.  That  empty  cloud  space  at 
the  bottom  looks  too  hollow,  the  figures  above,  in  spite 
of  the  buoyant,  upward  trend  of  their  principal  lines,  seem 
to  need  something  more  beneath  them,  some  mass  darker 
in  color  than  the  clouds,  to  keep  the  composition  from 
being  top  heavy.  Take  away  the  screening  slip  of  paper, 
and,  behold,  we  see  that  what  Raphael  did  was  precisely 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  173 

the  right  thing  —  as  might  have  been  expected.  It  is 
always  safe  to  assume  that  a  really  great  artist  lias  excel- 
lently sufficient  reasons  for  what  he  does.  It  is  not  at  all 
necessary  for  his  sake  that  we  should  prove  his  judgment 
good.  But  it  is  sometimes,  as  here,  a  pleasant  thing  for 
ourselves  to  find  that  we  can  follow  his  thought  part  way 
with  our  own. 

Before  leaving  the  page,  look  at  the  beautiful  grada- 
tions of  light  and  dark.  Even  in  the  absence  of  all  posi- 
tive color,  we  have  exquisite  transitions  from  bright 
illumination  to  deep,  dark  tones  made  partly  by  shadow 
and  partly  by  the  original  colors  of  the  painting.  We 
find  the  principal  light  comes  from  above.  The  soft 
shadows,  thus  made  to  fall  under  the  brows  of  both  the 
Mother  and  the  Child,  add  intensity  to  the  radiance  of 
their  eyes  —  eyes  beautiful  as  stars,  but  looking  down  not 

"...  with  cold, 
Sweet  invitation,  like  a  star 
Fixed  in  the  heavens  old  ;  " 

rather  with  the  kindly  glow  of  living  hearts  that  under- 
stand and  love. 


Before  printed  books  were  cheap  and  plenty,  and  before 
there  were  any  provisions  for  the  education  of  ordinary 
people's  children,  the  church  walls  were  depended  upon 
much  more  than  at  present  for  instruction  in  sacred  his- 
tory. The  saints  of  old-time  legends  have  always  been 
dear  to  the  imagination,  with  their  pathetic  or  heroic 
mingling  of  human  weakness  and  divine  strength  ;  and, 
naturally  enough,  artists  living  in  times  and  countries 
where  such  legends  were  most  honored  have  used  them 
over  and  over  again  as  subjects  for  pictures. 


174  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Murillo's 1  St.  Anthony  of  Padua  gives  us  an  imagi- 
native picture  of  the  Franciscan  brother,  blessed,  by  a 
Vision  of  the  Christ  Child  come  down  from  heaven  to 
cheer  and  strengthen  him.  The  kneeling  Anthony  is 
clad  in  the  conventional  robe  and  sandals  of  the  Francis- 
can order,  with  shaven  head  and  a  girdle  of  coarse  rope 
showing  his  renunciation  of  personal  luxuries.  The  back- 
ground vista  of  hills  indicates  his  withdrawal  from  the 
bustling,  business  affairs  of  this  world  into  solitude  with 
its  opportunity  for  devout  meditation.  His  face  is  honest 
and  kindly,  as  wrell  as  handsome,  not  yet  made  harsh  by 
conflict  or  sharp  by  suffering.  One  can  easily  conceive 
him  a  disciple  of  large-hearted  St.  Francis,  who  called 
the  birds  his  brothers  ;  indeed,  there  is  a  legend  that 
Anthony  himself  once  preached  to  the  fish  in  the  sea,  tell- 
ing them  of  the  love  of  their  Creator,  and  that  the  water 
creatures  listened  gladly. 

The  Christ  Child  has  seldom  been  shown  in  a  more 
adorable  guise  than  here,  where  He  trusts  Himself  with 
such  winsome  confidence  to  His  follower's  arms,  reaching 
out  His  own  dimpled  hand  to  caress  the  strong  man's 
cheek.  We  can  make  out  just  enough  of  the  Child's  left 
arm  to  guess  that  its  gesture  is  equally  tender  and  affec- 
tionate. There  could  hardly  be  a  more  exquisitely  lovely 
and  lovable  sight  than  this  baby  with  His  blossom-like 
beauty,  so  appealing  in  its  delicacy,  and  His  loving  nature, 
so  joyfully  shown  in  look  and  gesture. 

The  monk's  face,  with  its  look  of  rapt  devotion,  is 
well  worth  thoughtful  study.  Notice,  too,  the  exquisite 
delicacy  of  his  own  response  to  this  gracious  Vision. 
His  hands  hardly  venture  to  touch    the  Child's    person. 

1  Bartolome"  Esteban  Murillo,  one  of  the  great  Spanish  masters  (1018- 
1G82).     The  original  of  this  picture  is  now  in  Berlin. 


o 


E-1 


o 
is 


15 


176  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

They  shield  it  from  their  own  contact  by  interposing 
a  bit  of  drapery  between  the  man's  strong  fingers  and 
the  baby  flesh.1 

The  playful  cherubs  attendant  on  the  Child  are  de- 
lightful in  their  own  childish  way.  One  suspects  that 
the  dark-haired  mite,  thumbing  the  saint's  abandoned 
book,  is  the  immortalized  image  of  some  real,  live  street 
urchin,  who  once  played  in  ragged,  sunshiny  contentment 
in  the  streets  of  an  old  Spanish  city.  Let  him  rumple 
the  leaves  to  his  heart's  content ;  St.  Anthony  no  longer 
needs  to  con  the  records  of  other  experiences  to  gain 
comfort  and  inspiration,  since  such  a  Vision  has  come 
to  him  direct !  The  chubby  fellow  bearing  the  stalk  of 
lilies  (emblems  of  purity  and  unworldliness)  may  be  call- 
ing the  others  to  come  witness  the  honors  paid  to  a  holy 
man  ;  but  it  really  looks  quite  as  much  as  if  he  were  shar- 
ing with  the  three  above  him  in  a  game  of  romps,  hold- 
ing the  lilies  aloft  to  prevent  their  being  captured  by 
that  other  round-bodied  morsel  reaching  down  so  eagerly 
from  his  vague  support  among  the  clouds  !  Why,  indeed, 
should  not  these  celestial  babies  have  their  fun  ?  The 
pair  hovering  just  over  the  chief  figures  in  the  picture 
are  of  a  more  sedate  sort,  and  seem  to  be  gravely  talking 
the  whole  thing  over  in  some  cherubic  dialect. 

1  It  is  interesting  to  know  in  this  connection  that  Murillo  painted  this 
same  subject  (the  appearance  of  the  Christ  Child  to  St.  Anthony)  many 
times,  making  significant  changes  in  his  compositions  as  the  idea  changed 
its  shape  in  his  poetic  imagination.  The  first  time  he  painted  the  subject 
he  represented  Anthony  kneeling  on  the  ground,  the  Child  being  revealed 
as  a  Vision  high  up  in  the  air  above  his  head.  The  second  time  he  at- 
tempted the  same  subject,  he  showed  Anthony  kneeling  before  a  reading- 
desk,  the  Child  standing  on  the  open  pages  of  the  book  upon  the  desk, 
one  hand  laid  very  lightly  in  the  saint's  hand.  On  a  third  canvas  the 
Child  sits  upon  the  open  book,  one  hand  lifted  in  benediction.  Still 
another  version  is  that  which  is  reproduced  here.  All  these  originals 
are  now  in  different  European  galleries. 


PICTURES    WITH   RELIGIOUS  THEMES  177 

See  how  beautiful  the  light  is  in  this  picture,  cen- 
tring on  the  baby  Christ  and  fading  softly  away  into  the 
surrounding  dusk  in  the  illumination  of  the  half -open 
book  by  the  light  reflected  down  from  the  Child's  body  ! 
Did  the  devout  old  painter  mean  to  suggest  the  flooding 
of  old  knowledge  with  new  importance  and  beauty  when 
looked  at  in  the  light  of  personal,  spiritual  experience  ? 
Or  did  he  just  wish  to  finish  out  that  corner  of  his  pict- 
ure with  a  bit  of  added  pleasantness  for  the  eye,  by  lead- 
ing his  lights  and  shadows  a  dance  over  the  contrasting 
surfaces  of  a  dry,  old  book  and  a  warm,  live  small  boy  ? 
It  is  not  necessary  to  decide  the  question.  We  are  richer 
if  we  hold  to  both  interpretations  at  once. 

We  can  readily  see  how  much  the  dusky  trees  in  the 
right-hand  side  of  the  picture  add  to  its  beauty  of  gen- 
eral effect.  They  cannot  do  much  for  the  story  part  of 
the  picture  beyond  helping  out  the  thought  of  Anthony's 
retirement  to  forest  solitudes  ;  but  certainly  they  are  of 
great  importance  in  filling  in  the  space  behind  the  kneel- 
ing man.  This  space  itself  is  of  more  importance  than 
one  might  at  first  think.  Just  try  the  experiment  of 
laying  your  hand  or  a  sheet  of  paper  across  the  right- 
hand  portion  of  the  picture,  cutting  off  everything  be- 
yond the  toe  of  the  nearest  sandal.  The  shape  of  the 
remaining  picture  as  a  whole  is  not  half  so  agreeable. 
We  immediately  feel  that  it  needs  more  breathing  room. 
If  we  had  the  full  space  in  the  proportions  chosen  by  the 
old  master,  but  left  quite  empty,  that  again  would  be 
very  unsatisfactory.  The  eye  wants  something  to  break 
the  monotony  of  that  dusky  space,  and  yet  something 
not  so  distinct  as  to  make  a  strong  call  to  the  eye, 
attracting  it  away  from  the  principal  figures  and  the 
circling  cherubs.     On  the  whole,  then,  we  come  back  to 


178  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Murillo's  own  idea,  and  see  that  his  trained  artistic  in- 
stincts led  him  to  do  precisely  the  right  thing  in  the 
right  place. 

Have  yon  ever  sat  in  the  evening  in  a  room  lighted 
only  by  the  glow  and  flame  of  an  open  fire,  watching  the 
play  of  the  firelight  on  faces  and  furniture,  walls  and 
ceiling,  as  it  alternately  dulled  and  brightened,  and 
worked  mysterious  transformations  in  the  aspects  of  the 
most  commonplace,  familiar  things?  The  memory  of 
such  experiences  often  helps  one  appreciate  the  beauty 
of  Rembrandt's 1  interiors  ;  for  what  he  delighted  in 
above  all  things  was  the  rich  contrast  of  warm  lights 
and  shades.  He  enjoyed  these  as  ardently  as  other  ar- 
tists have  enjoyed  excpuisite  outlines  and  beautiful  colors. 

The  picture  shown  on  page  179  is  a  reproduction  from 
Rembrandt's  Pilgrims  at  JEmmaus.  The  original  paint- 
ing is  in  the  Louvre.  The  text,  so  to  speak,  was  evi- 
dently taken  from  the  Gospel  of  Luke  (xxiv,  30,  31). 
The  same  subject  has  been  treated  by  a  great  many 
artists  in  a  great  many  different  ways.  This  is  the  way 
in  which  it  appealed  to  the  fertile  fancy  of  the  most 
famous  of  Dutch  painters. 

To  see  it  rightly,  one  needs  to  look  at  it  first  from 
a  little  distance  so  as  to  get  the  effect  of  the  whole,  at 
arm's  length,  let  us  say,  to  see  the  beauty  of  its  central 
light,  rippling  off  into  the  darkness  above  and  around. 
This  beauty  is  almost  the  same  in  whatever  position  the 
picture  is  held  or  in  whatever  attitude  the  observer  looks 
at  it.     Just  try  the  experiment  of  tilting  your  head  side- 

1  Rembrandt  llermanzoon  van  Ryn  (1607-1669).  It  is  interesting, 
when  one  is  studying  this  picture,  to  know  that  Nicholas  Maas,  who 
painted  The  Spinner,  shown  on  page  107,  was  one  of  Rembrandt's  pupils. 


THE   1TLGEIMS   AT  EMMA  US. —Rembrandt. 


180  IIUW   TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

wise  towards  one  shoulder  and  looking  at  the  print  with 
half-shut  eyes.  The  loveliness  of  it,  even  in  a  little  re- 
production of  this  sort,  is  something  surprising  to  one 
who  tries  the  experiment  for  the  first  time. 

It  was  probably  this  impressive  effect  of  light  and  shade, 
made  a  hundred-fold  more  impressive  and  beautiful  by  its 
play  into  the  colors  of  the  painting,  for  which  the  artist 
chiefly  worked ;  but  there  is  much  besides  this  to  enjoy 
in  the  print. 

The  source  of  the  light  is  a  little  puzzling.  It  seems 
to  come  partly  from  an  unseen  window,  rather  high  up  in 
a  wall  at  the  left  (indicated  by  the  slant  of  the  shadow 
on  the  partly  lighted  pillar  beyond  the  left-hand  figure), 
and  partly  from  the  figure  of  the  Master.  This  effect  of 
radiation  of  light  from  His  figure  in  the  big,  bare  dusky 
room,  in  itself  gives  one  a  sense  of  something  wonderful, 
beyond  the  every-day  nature  of  things.  The  sudden 
dawning  of  the  truth  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  two 
disciples  is  finely  shown  ;  the  instinctive  movement  of 
the  one  at  the  right  of  the  picture,  as  if  to  spring  to  his 
feet,  is  beautifully  true  to  human  nature.  One  wishes  he 
could  see  the  other  face  ;  what  is  its  expression  ?  What 
ought  it  to  be  ?  The  great  painter  takes  us  into  friendly 
counsel  with  him  here,  leaving  us  to  work  out  the  detail 
of  the  picture  with  him.  He  could  easily  have  drawn  the 
second  disciple  in  such  a  position  as  to  show  his  face  and 
have  given  him  any  one  of  a  hundred  different  kinds  of 
features  and  expressions ;  but,  instead,  he  paid  the  public 
(including  you  and  me)  the  compliment  of  letting  us 
imagine  that  bit  of  the  picture  for  ourselves. 

And  what  is  it  these  two  disciples  see?  The  face  of 
One  who  has  passed  through  vigil  and  trial  and  martyr- 
dom ;  One  whose  eyes  have  a  strange,  far-off  look,  gazing 


PICTURES    WITH   RELIGIOUS   THEMES  1*1 

not  on  His  companions  but  away  into  heaven  and  judg- 
ment and  eternity.    .    .   . 

The  unearthly  pathos  of  the  central  figure,  all  aglow 
with  softly  radiant  light,  and  the  amazed  conviction  of 
the  two  disciples,  are  given  exquisite  emphasis  by  the 
dense,  good-natured  unconsciousness  of  the  black-eyed 
boy  bringing  a  plate  of  food  to  the  modest  supper  table. 
He  evidently  sees  only  three  guests  who  are  or  ought  to 
be  hungry,  and  he  is  doing  his  humble  best  to  serve  thefn 
as  they  should  be  served.  His  utter  obliviousness  of 
what  is  going  on  before  his  eyes  is  like  the  pathetic  un- 
consciousness of  a  little  child,  offering  some  well-meant, 
childish  service  to  grown-up  people  too  absorbed  in  a 
deep  tragic  experience  to  notice  or  to  care. 

The  dark  colors  of  the  boy's  hair  and  eyes  and  gar- 
ments make  a  fine  contrast  with  the  lighter  clothing  and 
white  hair  of  the  disciple  by  whose  side  he  stands ;  and 
the  gentle  deference  with  which  he  bends  to  place  the 
dish  upon  the  table  gives  the  outlines  of  the  right  half  of 
the  group  a  beautiful  curve  around  the  figure  of  the 
Christ,  thus  adding  to  the  emphasis  of  the  centring  lights 
of  the  picture.  This  arching  curve,  suggested  in  the 
outlines  of  the  right-hand  figures  and  traceable  —  though 
less  distinctly  —  in  the  left-hand  figure,  is  repeated,  we 
see,  a  little  farther  off  in  the  picture,  by  the  faintly  dis- 
cernible arch,  intentionally  left  indistinct,  just  as  the 
lower  one  was  intentionally  left  incomplete,  only  hinted  ; 
but  both  help  make  up  the  beauty  of  the  whole  as  it 
appeals  to  our  eyes. 

Look  once  more  at  the  light  and  dark  before  we  leave 
them.  See  how  gently  the  transitions  from  strong  to 
lesser  light  are  managed.  At  the  left  of  the  central  light, 
the  upraised  hand  and  the  half -turned  face  of  one  disciple 


182  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

take  the  illumination  in  a  subdued  fashion,  and  lead  the 
eye  off  to  the  wall  just  faintly  aglow.  The  overhanging 
edges  of  the  table-cloth  are  a  little  less  light  than  the 
table  top,  and  the  curiously  curved  legs  of  the  table  are 
still  a  little  less  light,  leading  the  eye  down  to  the 
shadowy  floor.  At  the  right,  the  heavy  table-cover  and 
the  clothes  of  the  other  disciple  make  still  another  avenue 
of  transition,  leading  from  the  central  light  awa}^  to  the 
dusky  wall,  where  the  strange  glow  seems  almost  to 
flicker  and  change  while  we  watch. 


There  are  few  things  in  life  more  terrible  than  broken 
despair  in  a  strong  man.  The  sight  of  stalwart  shoulders, 
accustomed  to  practical  burden  bearing,  bowed  with  grief, 
and  eyes  accustomed  to  steady  far  seeing  filled  with  tears, 
is  almost  as  appalling  as  the  calamity  which  caused  it. 
We  instinctively  hush  our  own  voices  and  walk  with 
gentler  tread. 

It  is  something  akin  to  this  feeling  which  comes  over 
us  when  we  look  at  this  bearded  man,  bowed  in  such 
hopeless  sorrow  on  his  throne-like  seat.  The  frieze 
above  his  head  and  the  arched  spaces  below  hint  that 
we  have  before  us  a  part  of  the  decoration  of  some  great 
building.  On  the  tablet  at  his  feet  we  read  the  Latin 
form  of  Jeremiah.  He  it  is,  Jeremiah,  the  old  Israelite 
prophet,  as  Michelangelo1  portrayed  him  three  hundred 
years  ago  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel. 

Our  familiar  English  phraseology  speaks  of   "  heavy '" 

1  Michelangelo  Buonarotti,  one  of  the  greatest  of  Italian  masters  (1475- 
1564).  He  was  eminent,  not  only  as  a  painter,  but  as  sculptor,  architect, 
ami  poet.  The  Sistine  Chapel  is  a  part  of  the  Vatican,  the  papal  palace 
at  Rome.     It  takes  its  name  from  its  builder,  Sixtus  IV. 


JEREMIAH.  —  Michelangelo. 


18-i  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

grief,  of  "  crushing  "  sorrow,  of  "  sinking  "  under  the 
burden  of  despair.  The  figure  of  speech  is  rooted  in 
a  deep  reality  of  human  experience,  so  close,  although 
so  subtile,  is  the  analogy  between  outward  facts  and 
inward  states.  See  how  this  phase  of  spiritual  life  took 
form  in  the  imagination  of  a  great  artist.  As  we  look  at 
the  picture,  we  are  almost  overpowered  by  a  sense  of 
dragging  heaviness.  The  seated  figure,  built  on  the 
massive  scale  of  the  giants  of  ancient  days,  gives  us  a 
feeling  of  enormous  weight,  bearing  down  as  under  an 
awful  load.  The  huge  shoulders,  meant  to  be  mag- 
nificently square,  are  bent  in  a  curve  whose  lines  lead 
the  eye  steadily  down.  The  powerful  legs,  that  seem 
built  for  a  steep  climb  or  a  long  march,  are  bent  into 
impotent  curves,  still  tending  downward.  The  hands, 
that  were  made  for  heroic  gestures  of  exhortation  and 
command,  have  lost  their  indwelling  temper.  The  right 
hand  dully  lifts  itself  to  the  lips  to  stifle  a  groan  ;  the 
left  hand  hangs  limp  and  nerveless  over  one  knee.  The 
feet  on  which  this  Titan  was  wont  to  stand  erect  have 
forgotten  their  vigor,  and,  in  dumb  misery,  are  pushed 
back  so  far  under  the  seat  that,  even  if  he  would,  their 
owner  could  not  use  them  at  a  second's  notice.  It  looks 
as  if  he  hardly  expected  to  ever  stand  again. 

The  majestic  sorrow  of  the  downcast  head  is  something 
which,  once  known,  cannot  be  forgotten.  Thereafter  it 
links  itself  with  all  the  grandest  poetic  passages  in  the 
Hebrew  writings  that  bear  the  prophet's  name  —  pas- 
sages where  a  great  soul  cried  out  in  hopeless  sorrow 
over  an  ignorant,  perverse,  though  still  beloved,  people, 
whose  sins  deserved  all  that  divine  justice  sent  upon 
them  :  — 


PICTURES   WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  185 

SEfjeg  fjabc  forsaken  trjc  fountain  of  lining  maters,  ant>  fjcrncrj 

tfjem  out  cisterns  tijat  ran  liolti  no  mater.  .  .  . 
&\)c  jou  of  our  fjcart  is  ccascrj ;  our  turner  is  turnrrj  into  mourn* 

trtcf. 
E\)t  croum  is  fallen  from  our  fjcarj ;  mac  unto  us  trjat  inc  fjauc 

sinncrj ! 

Jor  trjts  our  fjcart  is  faint ;  for  ti)is  our  cges  arc  turn 

QErjc  fjarucst  is  past,  tl)c  summer  is  cnrjcti,  anej  foe  arc  not 

sabcti.  .  .  . 

If  we  take  pains  to  learn  some  particulars  about  the 
painting  of  this  picture,  we  find  the  strange  shape  of 
the  composition  accounted  for  in  an  interesting  fashion. 
This  odd  triangular  space  is  one  of  several  around  the 
edge  of  the  oblong  ceiling  of  the  famous  chapel.  It 
might  well  have  seemed  impossible  to  do  anything  serious 
and  imposing  in  a  space  like  this  ;  but  the  old  master  in 
charge  of  this  work  saw  how  he  could  use  these  seemingly 
unpromising  conditions  as  great  opportunities.  The  fan- 
shaped  spaces  were  saved  from  any  accidental  and  scattered 
look  by  having  a  practically  continuous  band  or  frieze, 
with  a  dignified,  architectural  effect,  run  through  them 
all,  extending  quite  around  the  ceiling.  But  each  space 
was  closely  confined,  the  heavy  frieze  shutting  it  in  with 
severity  as  well  as  dignity.  On  the  high  ceiling  of  a 
chapel  built  for  the  head  of  the  church,  what  could  be 
so  fitting  and  impressive  in  these  niche-like  spaces  as  the 
solemn,  meditative  figures  of  the  sibyls  of  ancient  days, 
unearthly,  awful  beings,  to  whom  human  destinies  were 
known  from  the  foundations  of  the  world,  and  prophets 
who  had  seen  visions  in  their  youth  and  dreamed  dreams 
in  their  old  age,  and  who  had  told  both  the  visions  and 
the  dreams  with  passionate  insistence  to  man's  careless 
ears  ! 


186  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Volumes  have  been  written  about  the  frescos  of 
Michelangelo,  for  ever  since  they  took  shape  under  the 
master's  hand  men  have  recognized  in  them  something  as 
real  and  imperishable  as  life  itself.1  They  have  inspired 
many  poets  ;  and  few  have  sung  of  them  more  fittingly 
than  Cranch  in  his  slow,  sonorous  verses  on  their  great 
painter :  — 

"  In  his  interior  light 
Awoke  those  shapes  of  might 

Once  known,  that  never  die ; 
Forms  of  Titanic  birth, 
The  elder  brood  of  earth, 
That  fill  the  mind  more  grandly  than  they  charm  the  eye. 

"  Like  some  cathedral  spire 
That  takes  the  earliest  fire 

Of  morn,  he  towered  sublime 
O'er  names  and  fanes  of  mark, 
Whose  lights  to  his  were  dark ; 

Facing  the  east  he  caught  a  glow  beyond  his  time. 

"  A  heaven  of  larger  zone 
Not  theirs,  but  his,  —  was  thrown 

O'er  old  and  wonted  themes ; 
The  fires  within  his  soul 
Shone  like  an  aureole 

Around  the  prophets  old  and  sibyls  of  his  dreams." 

1  "Every  genuine  work  of  art  has  as  much  reason  for  being  as  the 
earth  and  the  sun.  The  gayest  charm  of  beauty  has  a  root  in  the  consti- 
tution of  things.  The  Iliad  of  Homer,  the  Songs  of  David,  the  odes  of 
Pindar,  the  tragedies  of  JEschylus,  the  Doric  temples,  the  Gothic  cathe- 
drals, the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  all  and  each  were  made  not  for  sport  but 
in  grave  earnest,  in  tears  and  smiles  of  suffering  and  loving  men."  — 
Emerson  in  Society  and  Solitude. 


* 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  187 

The  figures  of  Moses,  Elijah,  and  Joshua,  from  Sargent's 
Old  Testament  Prophets}  constitute  the  middle  section 
of  a  long  frieze  containing  in  all  nineteen  figures  of 
heroic  size.  Above  this  horizontal  space,  on  the  walls  of 
the  building  where  the  pictures  are  placed  (the  Boston 
Public  Library),  are  others  whose  theme  is  taken  from 
the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  mythologies  and  from  the 
earliest  struggles  of  the  Hebrew  nation  out  of  political 
bondage  and  pagan  polytheism.  The  frieze  of  the 
Prophets  continues  this  thought  into  that  of  growth 
towards  the  nobler  spirituality  of  faith  in  one  all-ruling 
Jehovah,  and  the  expectation  of  a  Christ  to  come.  One 
understands  better  a  little  section  of  the  painting  when 
knowing  the  general  idea  underlying  the  work  as  a  whole. 

This  Moses,  as  might  naturally  be  inferred  from  its 
general  appearance,  is  the  central  figure  in  the  long 
line  of  the  prophets.  All  the  other  figures  (nine  on 
each  side)  are  paintings  on  a  flat  surface.  The  Moses 
alone  is  a  piece  of  combined  modelling  and  painting, 
the  colossal  figure  standing  out  from  the  wall  in  low 
relief,  face,  beard,  shoulders,  and  arms,  as  well  as  the 
Tables  of  the  Law,  having  the  effect  of  massive,  sculptured 
stone.  He  stands  there  holding  the  whole  composition 
together  as  the  keystone  of  an  arch  holds  that  structure 
together.  The  eye  is  involuntarily  drawn  to  him  first. 
The  artistic  dependence  on  his  massive  figure,  as  the 
central  weight  of  the  composition,  in  itself  immensely 
emphasizes  one's  sense  of  the  majestic  import  of  his  per- 

1  John  Singer  Sargent  is  an  American  artist  of  the  present  day,  horn 
in  1856.  The  great  wall  painting,  of  which  this  shows  a  small  section,  is 
in  the  Public  Library  of  Boston.  Messrs.  Curtis  &  Cameron,  of  Boston, 
publish,  in  their  series  known  as  the  Copley  Prints,  photographs  of  the 
Sargent  pictures,  and  it  is  to  their  courtesy  that  the  authors  of  this 
volume  are  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  reproducing  the  present  example. 


188  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

sonality  in  the  great  drama  of  Hebrew  history  —  that 
drama  of  religious  development  which  still  shapes  the 
inward  life  of  all  Christian  peoples. 

Moses  stands  there  with  a  sort  of  monumental  dignity, 
at  once  supporting  and  supported  by  the  Tables  of  the 
Commandments,  and  enfolded  by  the  wings  of  cherubim 
and  seraphim  as  one  dwelling  close  to  the  very  throne  of 
God.  His  severely  straight  figure  with  its  stiffly  conven- 
tionalized drapery,  his  solemn  face  with  its  deep-set  eyes, 
his  massive  shoulders  and  arms,  do  actually  make  one 
think  quite  as  much  of  some  magnificent  monument  as  of 
a  man,  sharing  men's  qualities  and  circumstances.  And 
this  no  doubt  is  the  way  the  artist  meant  that  we  should 
feel.  In  no  other  manner,  perhaps,  could  he  have  so 
deeply  impressed  our  imagination  with  a  sense  of  this 
ancient  Hebrew's  exceptional  destiny — a  destiny  which 
set  him  marvellously  apart  from  all  human  kind  in  his  own 
day,  which  forced  upon  him  the  most  majestic  isolation. 
The  great-minded,  spiritually  endowed  leader  of  a  restless 
people  incapable  of  grasping  his  intellectual  conceptions, 
or  sympathizing  in  any  permanently  loyal  fashion  with 
his  spiritual  convictions — his  was  inevitably  a  life  of 
magnificent  loneliness.  We  gather  a  faint  hint  of  the 
experience  from  the  lot  of  men  and  women  here  and  there 
to-day,  forced  to  be  strong  and  brave  for  the  sake  of 
others  dependent  on  them,  constantly  meeting  demands 
upon  them  for  sympathy,  counsel,  and  encouragement  ; 
yet,  by  the  very  fact  of  their  position  of  leadership,  de- 
barred from  asking  in  their  own  turn  for  the  commonplace 
comfort  of  friendly  sympathy  and  encouragement  in  their 
anxieties  and  perplexities.  Moses  bore  the  spiritual 
responsibilities  of  a  whole  nation  of  ignorant,  turbulent 
idolaters,  and  through  that  nation,  of  the  long  procession 


190  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

of  all  the  Christian  peoples  on  this  earth.  It  is  well  that  his 
image  here  should  speak  to  ns  not  at  all  of  flesh  and  bone 
and  the  other  temporary  physical  accessories  of  an  Israel- 
ite citizen's  career  among  his  fellows,  but  rather  of  a 
spiritual  giant,  who  talked  with  God  upon  the  mountains, 
and  who  laid  the  solid  foundations  of  a  highway  over 
which  we  walk  to-day  in  our  own  quest  after  the  Eternal. 

At  the  right,  as  Ave  look  at  the  picture,  the  warrior 
Joshua  sheathes  the  sword  so  vigorously  wielded  in  the 
cause  of  the  infant  nation.  The  main  lines  of  his  figure 
are  severely  plain  and  simple,  fitting  the  virile  simplicity 
of  Joshua's  energetic  character,  and  harmonizing  with  the 
lofty  grandeur  in  the  lines  of  the  Moses.  Notice  how 
the  effect  of  strength  in  the  figure  is  brought  out  by  its 
pose,  where  the  most  significant  lines  are  at  right  angles 
witli  each  other  :  the  folds  of  the  drapery  are  mostly 
vertical,  the  muscular  forearm  is  almost  horizontal,  the 
sword  sliding  into  its  sheath  repeats  the  vertical.  A 
figure  whose  main  lines  are  thus  plain  verticals  and  hori- 
zontals naturally  gives  the  impression  of  stability  and 
strength.     Compare  the  capital  H  with  the  capital  Q. 

The  Bible  student,  reading  the  book  of  Joshua  over 
and  over  (as  indeed  the  artist  seems  to  have  done),  will 
be  more  and  more  impressed  by  the  perfect  appropriate- 
ness of  this  figure  to  stand  for  the  type  of  character 
which  shines  so  clearly  through  the  Scripture  story.  It 
is,  in  fact,  a  much  finer  touch  of  artistic  insight  to  show 
the  warrior  king  sheathing  his  sword,  than  it  would  have 
been  to  show  him  brandishing  it  in  the  heat  of  military 
conquest ;  for  the  wisest  strength  of  a  strong  man  often 
lies  in  Ins  ability  to  make  other  people  rise  into  strength. 
This  picture  of  Sargent's  sends  us  back  to  read  again  1 

1  Joshua  xxiv,  1-28. 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  191 

how  the  Hebrew  ruler  forced  his  people  to  make  a  stand, 
to  decide  for  themselves  whether  they  would  take  the  side 
of  the  God  of  Jacob  or  of  the  pitiful,  ugly  divinities  of 
their  barbarian  neighbors;  how  he  set  up  a  monument  to 
serve  as  a  reminder  to  them  of  their  self-imposed  vows 
of  loyalty.  He  bad  long  led  them,  commanded  them, 
cheered  them.  It  was  time  they  should  learn  to  stand 
on  their  own  feet  and  quit  themselves  like  men. 

Elijah,  at  the  left-band  side  of  the  picture,  strikes  the 
observer  at  once  as  an  enthusiast,  a  man  of  violent  emo- 
tion. The  rigid  pose  of  the  neck,  the  intense  feeling  of 
the  worn,  ascetic  face,  the  nervous  strain  in  the  muscles 
of  chest  and  arm  and  bands,  all  speak  of  the  seer  and 
devotee.  The  uplifted,  arm  with  the  tall  staff,  and  the 
other  arm  across  the  chest,  combined  with  the  long  lines 
of  the  rude  drapery,  give  once  more  the  effect  of  firm- 
ness and  energy  to  the  figure  in  itself,  and  at  the  same 
time  make  a  beautifully  harmonious  balance  for  the 
Joshua  at  the  other  side.  It  is  interesting  to  notice 
how  like,  and  yet  how  unlike,  are  the  main  lines  in  these 
two  figures.  Both  are  tall,  straight,  severe,  with  bare 
feet  and  clinging  draperies,  and  with  an  effect  of  dark 
rich  color  about  them ;  each  has  an  arm  across  his  breast, 
each  carries  something  involving  long  vertical  lines  (sword 
and  staff).  When  one  holds  the  picture  off  at  a 'distance, 
the  two  figures  have  the  dignified  beauty  of  two  tall,  dark 
columns,  one  on  either  side  of  the  Moses. 

But,  as  soon  as  one  begins  to  look  at  the  figures  in 
detail,  it  is  surprising  to  see  what  characteristic  differ- 
ences there  are  in  the  two  figures,  and  bow  completely 
the  artist  avoided  monotony  and  dull  repetition.  Joshua's 
head  is  bowed  ;  his  face  is  nearly  bidden  in  the  deep 
shadows  of  overhanging  drapery  ;    Elijah's  head  is  bare 


192  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

to  the  mountain  winds  and  storms,  his  face  uplifted. 
Joshua's  right  arm  crosses  over  to  his  left  side,  and  holds 
a  defensive  weapon,  pointing  downwards.  Elijah's  left 
arm  crosses  over  to  his  right  side,  where  the  other  hand 
grasps  a  staff  reaching  upward.  Joshua's  draperies  hang 
in  discreet  folds,  reposeful  as  those  of  a  judge  upon  the 
bench.  Elijah's  are  full  of  careless  disorder,  like  those 
of  an  advocate  who  quite  forgets  the  conventional  pro- 
prieties of  life  in  his  zeal  for  a  cause.  Even  the  feet 
of  the  two  figures  are  entirely  different  in  position  and 
drawing. 

Once  again,  Sargent  sends  us  with  fresh  enthusiasm 
to  our  Old  Testament  reading.  The  more  we  study  the 
picture,  the  better  we  grasp  the  story  of  the  fiery  old 
prophet  and  his  doings.  The  more  appreciatively  we 
read  the  story,  the  more  we  find  to  admire  in  the  pict- 
ure. Is  not  this  truly  the  very  image  of  the  old  man 
who  poured  out  such  fierce,  dramatic  sarcasm  on  the  un- 
happy priests  of  Baal,  taunting  them  with  the  hopeless 
impotence  of  their  lumpish  divinity :  — 

(£ry  alouo  ;  for  fjc  is  a  goo :  cttiirr  lie  is  talking  or  fjc  t's 
pursuing  or  fjc  ts  on  a  journru,  ax  pcraoucnturc  fjr  slccpctfj  ano 
must  be  arnakco. 

And,  again,  is  not  this  the  very  image  of  the  prophet 
who  stood  alone  on  the  heights,  when 

a  great  ano  strong  un'no  rent  ti)c  mountains  ano  brake  in 
pieces  tijc  rocks  .  .  .  ano  after  tfycinino  an  earthquake  .  .  .  ano 
after  tlic  earthquake  a  fire  .  .  .  ano  after  tfjc  fire  a  still,  small 
rjotcc.  .3 no  it  roas  so,  rofjen  lEltjafj  Jjraro  it,  tfjat  fjc  rnrappro  fjis 
face  in  tjt's  mantle.  .  .  . 

And  even  this  is  not  all  that  Sargent  put  into  the 
picture.     Suppose  we  look  at  it  again,  this  time  not  so 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  193 

much  for  its  intellectual  and  religious  suggestiveness  as 
for  its  beauty  of  mass  and  of  line,  and  of  light  and  dark. 
Color  we  must  perforce  be  content  to  miss. 

The  level  lines  across  the  top  of  the  picture  (which  in 
fact  separate  the  long  horizontal  panel  of  the  prophets 
from  another  portion  of  the  composition  just  above)  are 
broken  by  the  curving  wings  of  the  cherubim  behind  the 
head  of  the  lawgiver.  In  no  other  case,  in  the  whole 
length  of  the  panel  containing  nineteen  figures,  is  this  Hue 
touched  by  any  part  of  the  figures  themselves.  Only  in 
the  space  where  Moses  stands,  the  artist  carried  the  lines 
of  the  prophet  up  higher.  By  so  doing,  he  marked  in  an 
unobtrusive,  yet  easily  recognizable,  manner  the  exact 
middle  point  of  a  long  line  reaching  across  the  end  of 
the  large  room  for  whose  decoration  the  pictures  were 
planned. 

Our  instinctive  love  of  symmetry  and  balance  is  (per- 
haps unconsciously)  gratified  ;  furthermore,  our  minds, 
following  our  eyes,  are  led  at  once  to  identify  the  principal 
figure -- Moses  —  as  being  the  principal  figure.  And  in 
order  that  the  overlapping  of  the  wings  upon  the  cornice 
may  show  itself  to  be  a  dignified  intention,  not  an  acci- 
dental miscalculation  of  distances,  it  is  repeated  by  the 
tips  of  another  pair  of  wings  over  the  prophet's  shoulders. 
Yet  again,  besides  their  overlapping  the  cornice,  the  wings 
project  slightly  over  the  side  edges  marking  the  right 
and  left  extremities  of  the  space  where  Moses  stands. 
This  is  still  another  quiet  device  for  emphasizing  the 
middle  point  of  the  composition,  as  well  as  the  point  of 
leading  interest  in  thought. 

Of  course,  from  a  purely  pictorial  standpoint,  it  is  not 
at  all  necessary  that  the  principal  figure  in  a  composition 
should    occupy    its   geometric    centre.     There    are    many 


194  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

other  ways  of  indicating,  pictorially,  the  centre  of  thought 
and  interest.  But  when  an  artist  paints  a  picture,  as  here, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  making  a  given  wall  space  in 
a  building  as  beautiful  as  possible,  his  work  naturally 
takes  on  certain  new  qualities  as  a  result  of  considering 
its  adaptability  for  the  special  setting.1 

The  wings  themselves  are  crossed  in  variations  of  the 
X  shape,  giving  us  lines  radiating  from  centres,  and  the 
feathers  in  the  wings  repeat  this  suggestion  of  radiation. 
Even  as  we  see  them  here,  in  the  absence  of  all  positive 
color,  they  give  us  the  idea  of  beams  of  light  streaming 
out  from  a  luminous  source.  The  variety  and  sharpness 
of  the  angles  of  their  lines  set  off  in  strong  contrast  the 
upright  rigidity  of  Moses  himself.  We  appreciate  the 
restful  calm  of  his  lines  all  the  more  because  of  the  almost 
bewildering  complexity  of  the  wings  enfolding  him. 

When  we  are  studying  the  composition  of  a  picture,  we 
not  seldom  find  we  have  a  strong  sense  of  the  beauty  of  a 
certain  choice  or  arrangement  of  forms  without  being 
quite  able  to  decide  in  just  what  the  advantage  consists. 
The  placing  of  the  Tables  of  the  Ten  Commandments 
may  be  a  case  in  point.  We  all  see  the  beauty  of  their 
simple  spaces  and  of  the  Hebrew  characters,  so  ornamen- 
tal with  vigorous  strokes  and  graceful  curves.  We  some- 
way feel  too  that  the  effect  of  the  picture  as  a  whole  is 
immensely  more  beautiful  to  look  at  with  the  tables  placed, 


1 -John  Ruskin,  the  famous  English  art  critic,  says:  "The  only  es- 
sential distinction  between  decorative  and  other  art  is  the  being  fitted  for 
a  fixed  place,  and,  in  that  place,  related  either  in  subordination  or  in 
command,  to  the  effect  of  other  pieces  of  art.  And  all  the  greatest  art 
which  the  world  lias  produced  is  thus  fitted  for  a  place  and  subordinated 
to  a  purpose.  There  is  no  existing  highest  order  of  art  but  is  decorative. 
The  best  sculpture  yet  produced  has  been  the  decoration  of  a  temple 
front ;  the  best  painting  the  decoration  of  a  room." 


PICTURES    WITH    RELIGIOUS   THEMES  195 

as  now,  at  slight  angles  to  the  floor  level,  than  it  would 
have  been  if  both  tables  had  been  set  down,  square  and 
even,  the  edges  of  each  one  exactly  parallel  with  the 
edges  of  the  other  one.  But  why  ?  It  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  that  we  should  know  ;  the  main  thing  is  to 
be  able  to  feel  the  beauty  which  a  great  artist  put  into 
so  simple  a  matter  as  these  angles.  Perhaps  the  secret 
may  be  partly  in  the  fact  that  this  slight  leaning  of 
the  Tables  makes  the  lines  of  their  severe  shapes  partake 
of  the  nature  both  of  the  oblique-rayed  wings  and  the 
mainly  vertical  figure  of  the  prophet.  An  effect  thus 
midway  between  two  strikingly  contrasted  effects  often 
adds  to  their  beauty,  by  helping  blend  them  into  one  con- 
sistent whole. 

The  likenesses  and  differences  which  we  have  already 
traced  (191-192),  in  the  figures  of  Joshua  and  Elijah,  are 
quite  as  important  from  the  decorative  standpoint  as 
from  the  standpoint  of  character  study.  Think  them 
over  once  more.  Notice,  too,  in  each  case,  how  the  light 
falling  on  the  head  and  arm  of  the  prophet  makes  a 
gentle  transition  from  the  glory  of  the  heavenly  wings 
to  the  darker  masses  of  heavy  draperies.  The  light  on 
Elijah's  face  and  breast  is  echoed,  so  to  speak,  by  the  light 
on  the  lower  half  of  his  garments  ;  the  light  on  Joshua's 
right  arm  repeats  itself  in  the  long,  sweeping  folds  of 
the  cloak  below. 

The  grouping  of  the  two  dark  figures  close  beside  the 
Moses,  one  on  either  hand,  has  its  intellectual  significance, 
—  they  seem  to  support  him  faithfully,  one  through 
ecstatic  insight  into  the  far-off  and  the  other  through 
executive  ability  in  affairs  close  at  hand, --but,  besides 
this,  the  grouping  has  great  beauty  in  the  very  massing 
of  darks  and  lights.      Hold  the  picture  off  once  more  till 


196  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

you  lose  most  of  its  small  details,  and  you  see  the  dark 
masses  on  either  side  (softened  in  their  darkness  by  the 
play  of  light  upon  them)  enclosing  the  central  figure 
with  its  stronger  lights  and  more  conspicuous  variations 
of  color.  The  effect  is  most  grateful  to  the  eye.  It 
would  be  beautiful  to  look  at,  even  if  we  never  heard  of 
the  prophets  and  had  no  idea  what  the  picture  meant. 
We  feel  here  quite  plainly  what  artists  mean  when  they 
talk  about  the  harmony  of  a  composition.  Our  impres- 
sions of  the  three  figures  blend  into  the  impression  of 
one  closely  related  group,  dominated  by  one  central  figure, 
as  musical  notes  blend  in  a  chord. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  PAGES  OF  A  MAGAZINE 

TT7"E  who  read  the  new  magazines  each  month,  often 
fail  to  get  from  their  illustrations  anything  like 
the  amount  of  pleasure  and  profit  which  they  might  give 
us.  We  sometimes  pass,  with  a  moment's  careless  glance, 
drawings  to  which  an  artist  with  a  national  reputation 
devoted  whole  days.  This  is,  perhaps,  because  as  a  peo- 
ple we  "  take  "  to  literature  more  naturally  than  to  the 
pictorial  and  decorative  arts,  assuming  that  the  one  func- 
tion of  a  magazine  illustration  is  to  elucidate  the  text, 
like  an  explanatory  foot-note.  The  fact  is,  this  is  only 
a  part  of  its  function,  and  by  no  means  always  the  most 
important  part.  A  really  good  drawing  always  has  a 
value  of  its  own,  over  and  above  its  explanatory  bear- 
ing on  the  context,  and  the  study  of  such  drawings  is 
greatly  worth  while,  whether  we  ourselves  can  draw  or 
not. 

The  daily  newspapers  and  some  of  the  lesser  magazines 
do  publish  a  good  deal  of  rubbish  in  the  shape  of  poor 
drawing,  just  as  they  publish  a  good  deal  of  rubbish  in 
the  shape  of  poor  writing  ;  but  the  leading  magazines, 
like  the  Century,  Harper 's,  and  Scribners,  do  not  print 
anything  which  has  not  genuine  merit  of  one  sort  or  an- 
other, and  the  minor  magazines  sometimes  show  very  good 
work  by  comparatively  unknown  artists.     Besides  this,  the 

197 


198  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

inexpensive  magazines  often  give  us  attractive  "half-tone" 
reproductions  of  pictures  by  old  masters. 

Suppose  the  next  few  pages  of  this  present  volume  were 
the  pages  of  one  of  the  best  magazines.  Let  us  see  what 
we  are  likely  to  find  for  our  entertainment. 


Perhaps  the  first  article  is  on  the  great  libraries  of 
America,  and,  among  other  pictures,  we  find  this  one1 
(page  199),  showing  the  Boston  Public  Library  Build- 
ing at  night,  as  seen  from  Boylston  Street,  across  an  angle 
of  Copley  Square.  Let  us  not  turn  the  leaf  as  soon  as 
we  have  made  out  the  identity  of  the  building  and  given 
a  moment's  admiration  to  the  cleverness  of  the  effect  of 
inner  illumination;  rather,  let  us  linger  a  little  to  observe 
what  else  there  is  particularly  good  about  the  building  or 
the  drawing,  and  possibly  to  see  a  little  into  the  artist's 
way  of  making  his  effects. 

How  solid  and  dignified  the  great  library  looks  !  The 
artist's  choice  of  a  standpoint  had  something  to  do  with 
that.  A  position  just  opposite  the  middle  entrance,  with 
only  the  front  of  the  building  in  sight,  could  not  have 
commanded  half  so  impressive  a  view.  This  sketch  brings 
out  beautifully  the  stately  simplicity  which  is,  perhaps,  the 
greatest  charm  of  the  building  as  a  whole.  It  looks,  be- 
sides, as  if  it  had  room  enough  on  which  to  stand  ;  it  looks 
as  if  the  lower  story  were  substantial  enough  to  bear  the 
weight  of  the  upper  stories.  These  features  make  the 
eye  grateful,  after  seeing  so  many  buildings  towering 
above  painfully  limited  standing  room,  and  (in  the  retail 
shopping  regions)  piling  story  after  story  of  ponderous 

1  Drawn  by  Peixotto,  and  reproduced  here  from  Scribneys  Magazine, 
by  permission  of  the  publishers,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


o 


o 

E-i 

to 
O 

a 


200  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

brick  and  stone  on  the  top  of  a  ground  section  made 
merely  of  spider-web  girders  and  plate  glass.  And  it 
looks  as  if  it  were  built  to  last.  That  effect  is  partly  a 
matter  of  noble  proportions  in  the  whole  building  itself, 
and  in  its  details  of  window  and  door  spacing ;  but,  be- 
sides that,  the  artist's  way  of  making  his  sketch  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  it.  The  suggestions  of  motion  in  the 
things  around  —  in  the  people  coming  and  going,  and  the 
electric  cars  tearing  by  with  insistent  gongs  —  emphasize 
by  their  contrast  the  serene  stability  of  the  big  building, 
with  its  cheerful  glow  of  lights.  If  we  choose  to  think 
of  it  in  that  way,  there  is  a  pretty  bit  of  dramatic  effect 
in  the  strong  lights  about  the  entrance,  contrasting  with 
the  soft  darks  of  sky  and  street,  inviting  the  passer-by 
to  come  in  where  there  are  always  good  company  and  good 
cheer. 

Then,  to  look  at  the  same  artistic  effect  from  an  en- 
tirely different  standpoint,  hold  the  page  off  at  arm's 
length,  and  see  how  beautifully  the  strong  light,  half-light 
and  soft,  transparent,  deepening  shadows  melt  into  each 
other.  Right  side  up  or  sidewise  or  reversed,  the  page 
is  pleasant  to  look  at  on  account  of  the  harmonious  blend- 
ing of  these  different  effects.  The  beauty  of  it  is  com- 
parable in  a  rough  way  to  the  color  variation  in  a  leafy 
twig  in  spring  :  here  it  is  faintly  rosy,  there  the  rose 
somehow  melts  into  a  tawny  yellow,  then  the  yellow 
turns  into  a  sunshiny  green,  and  last  into  a  full,  deep 
leaf  green  ;  yet  we  can  hardly  tell  where  one  effect  leaves 
off  and  another  begins. 

Just  notice,  by  the  way,  how  the  brilliant  effect  of  the 
library  lights  is  produced.  All  we  really  have  in  fact  are 
tiny  streaks  and  dots  of  blank  paper,  but  they  seem  to 
glow  and   shine.     Has  not  the  strong  contrast  of  these 


THE    PAGES   OF   A    MAGAZINE  201 

white  spaces  with  the  dark  spaces  of  the  entrance  door- 
ways, and  with  the  heavily  shadowed  sides  of  the  oblong 
pedestals  in  front,  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  apparent 
brilliancy  of  the  light?  It  was  a  delicate  touch  for  the 
artist  to  show  the  globe  of  the  tall  are  light  close  against 
one  of  the  most  brilliantly  lighted  windows.  Light  against 
li<rht  Ave  have  here,  and  the  difference  between  their  inten- 
sities  is  not  very  great :  a  bungler  would  make  them  seem 
to  run  together  in  one  blur,  the  top  of  the  pole  seemingly 
fastened  to  the  side  of  the  building ;  but  our  illustrator 
knows  exactly  how  much  whiter  one  light  should  be  than 
the  other.  Thanks  to  his  delicate  perception  and  clever- 
ness of  hand,  Ave  see  the  arc  light  as  it  should  be,  that  is, 
several  rods  nearer  us  than  the  lighted  Avindows  of  the 
long  reading-room.  And  just  see,  in  passing,  Iioav  per- 
fectly the  shadoAV  of  the  lower  part  of  the  arc  lamp  is 
thrown  at  the  foot  of  the  tall  post  and  surrounded  by  a 
shallow  pool  of  light,  spreading  far  out  over  the  pave- 
ment. 

We  noticed  the  motion  of  the  people  in  the  picture 
as  emphasizing,  by  contrast,  the  solid  stability  of  the 
great  building.  Of  course,  these  people  also  help  us  to 
estimate  the  size  of  the  building.  If  the  human  figures 
Avere  all  blotted  out,  it  Avould  be  manifestly  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  for  us  to  judge  Avith  any  accuracy,  from 
the  picture  itself,  Avhether  the  doors  Avere  ten  or  tAventy 
feet  high.  As  it  is,  the  stature  of  the  man  on  the  steps 
(the  most  familiar  of  measures)  helps  us  guess  at  the  size 
of  doors  and  Avails,  and  the  comparative  sizes  of  the 
nearer  and  more  and  more  far-aAvay  people  help  us  feel 
something  of  the  distance  betAveen  us  and  the  lighted 
entrance.  The  print  itself  is  in  fact  only  a  flat  surface 
of  paper  possessing  merely  length  and  breadth  ;  but  this 


202  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

arrangement  for  effects  of  distance  gives  it  depth  also- — 
makes  it  practically  a  hollow  space,  with  length  and  depth 
and  height,  all  three. 


The  next  article  in  our  imaginary  magazine  is  a  story, 
let  us  say,  —  the  story  of  an  emigrant  from  the  Old  World 
coming  to  America  to  make  a  place  for  himself  and  pre- 
pare a  home  for  his  waiting  sweetheart.  And  at  the 
head  of  the  story  we  have  another  picture.  Fine  feeling 
for  landscape,  telling  bits  of  study  in  human  nature,  and 
an  exquisite  sense  of  decorative  effect  in  the  make-up  of 
a  page,  —  all  this  we  have  in  Castaigne's  1  Landing. 

It  is  a  portion  of  the  deck  of  an  ocean  steamer  just 
coming  into  New  York  towards  night.  There  is  eager 
expectancy  in  the  attitudes  of  some  of  the  passengers. 
Notice  how  clearly  this  is  shown.  The  standing  figure  of 
the  bearded  man  with  the  light  on  his  face  sets  the  key 
for  the  others,  so  to  speak.  His  dignity  is  offset  by  the 
picturesque  gawkiness  of  an  emigrant  in  the  very  corner 
of  the  picture,  eagerly  pointing  out  some  landmark  to  his 
comrade.  In  other  cases  the  spirit  of  expectation  is  ex- 
quisitely suggested  by  the  merest  trifles  ;  sometimes  it 
is  just  a  matter  of  changing  the  curving  outline  of  an  in- 
distinct felt  hat,  so  as  to  suggest  its  being  pushed  back 
on  the  head  ;  sometimes  it  is  a  change  in  the  curve  of  a 
coated  shoulder  that  tells  the  story.  A  sixteenth  of  an 
inch  of  difference  in  the  drawing  of  one  little  blotted 
outline,  and  you  have  a  whole  drama  suggested  about  a 
seeker  after  new  fortunes  in  a  new  country. 

1  Andre'  Castaigne  is  one  of  the  leading  illustrators  of  to-day.  This 
particular  drawing  is  reproduced  from  the  Century  Magazine  by  permis- 
sion of  the  Century  Company. 


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204  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

The  feeling  of  forward  motion  is  wonderfully  good,  at 
least  to  anybody  who  has  ever  travelled  on  a  large  water- 
craft.  It  almost  seems  as  if,  while  we  are  looking  at  the 
page,  that  bit  of  shore  ahead,  with  its  irregular  sky-line, 
must  shift  and  change,  new  vistas  coming  in  sight. 
What  magic  has  our  artist  used  here  ?  Study  the  print  a 
little  and  you  will  guess  that  the  secret  lies,  in  part,  in  his 
repeated  use  of  long  diagonal  lines,  reaching  off  in  the 
direction  (or  approximately  in  the  direction)  which  the 
vessel  takes.  Those  ropes  and  their  location  are  doubt- 
less true  to  the  traditional  facts  of  ocean  liners  ;  but  the 
artist  has  made  them  show  us  more  than  mere  chance 
portions  of  a  steamship's  cordage.  And  is  the  effect  of 
steady,  onward  motion  further  helped  out  by  the  dim 
showing,  through  these  flying  diagonals,  of  the  distant 
buildings  with  their  irregular  dots  of  light,  and  the  still 
more  distant  piers  of  the  great  bridge  ?  Perhaps.  The 
suggestion  of  wash  and  ripple  in  the  water  just  outside 
the  rail  has  also  something  to  do  with  it. 

There  are  many  suggestions  of  motion  and  life  in  neigh- 
boring objects.  For  all  the  drawing  is  so  small  and  con- 
tains so  few  details,  it  gives  us  an  impression  of  stir  and 
action.  It  is  a  great,  live,  bustling  city  that  lies  so  near. 
The  windoAvs,  just  beginning  to  light  up,  speak  of  work 
that  cannot  cease  at  sundown.  There  are  puffs  of  smoke 
and  steam  here  and  there,  telling  of  tugs  and  ferry  boats 
and  coast  steamers.  One  boat  is  just  ploughing  out  of 
sight  in  the  right  edge  of  the  drawing.  The  gleaming 
wake  behind  her,  traceable  in  a  long  line  half  across  the 
picture,  gives  us  a  sense  of  the  vigorous,  onward  push  of 
the  nearly  invisible  craft.     Where  is  she  bound? 

It  is  interesting  to  see  with  what  poetic  charm  the 
irregular  sky-line  of  lower  New  York  can  be  invested  by 


THE    PAGES   OF   A    MAGAZINE  205 

nil  artistic  eye.  It  certainly  does  have  a  picturesque  and 
attractive  air  as  we  see  it  here.  And  the  giant  piers  of 
Brooklyn  Bridge  with  their  cobweb  cables,  —  that  bridge 
looks  like  what  it  truly  is,  a  fairy  tale  of  modern  engineer- 
ing science.  Men  may  be  only  tiny  dots  and  atoms 
crawling  on  the  surface  of  a  big  globe ;  but,  after  all,  men 
are  greater  than  the  earth,  for  they  have  it  in  their  brains 
and  their  hands  to  wrest  out  of  the  very  heart  of  the 
earth  the  materials  for  bridging  her  chasms  and  spanning 
her  streams  and  sailing  the  whole  circuit  of  her  heaving 
oceans. 

Did  the  artist  have  anything  of  this  in  mind  when  he 
designed  this  picture,  leaving  out  the  sky  that  often 
makes  us  so  realize  our  littleness,  and  putting  in  chiefly 
the  things  that  speak  of  life  and  daily  work?  Possibly 
he  had  some  idea  of  thus  centring  thought  on  the  hurried, 
struggling  life  towards  which  the  passengers  are  moving, 
yet  not  necessarily  so.  The  most  remarkable  thing  about 
a  good  picture  is  the  number  of  interesting  suggestions  it 
often  contains  without  the  artist's  consciously  putting 
them  in. 

( hie  tiling  the  artist  certainly  must  have  had  con- 
sciously in  mind  here,  and  that  is  the  beautiful  composi- 
tion of  the  picture  which  makes  it  so  gratifying  to  the 
eye.  If  we  hold  it  at  a  little  distance,  so  as  to  forget  its 
small  particulars,  seeing  only  the  general  directions  of 
the  lines  and  the  general  shapes  and  proportions  of  the 
respective  spaces  of  dark  and  light,  we  find  it  is  as  pleas- 
ing to  the  eye  as  many  a  bit  of  ornament,  elaborately 
executed.  We  find  our  narrow  horizontal  oblong  divided 
into  two  parts  by  the  long  oblique  edge  line  of  the  deck. 
The  light  space  and  the  dark  space  thus  separated  are  not 
precisely  equal  in  size  nor  precisely  alike  in  shape  ;   with- 


206  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

out  being  able  to  explain  just  why,  Ave  are  conscious  that 
an  exactly  even  division  would  have  been  much  less  beau- 
tiful, savoring  of  the  easy  commonplace  of  our  grand- 
mothers' calico  patchwork.  Then  the  soft  gray  masses  of 
the  distant  buildings  —  midway  in  color  between  the 
dark  deck  and  the  light  water  —  add  a  touch  of  variety 
to  both  the  contrast  of  shapes  and  the  contrast  of  colors. 
And  how  much  those  delicate,  spider-web  rails  and  ropes 
add  to  the  beauty  of  the  little  oblong  considered  just  as 
an  ornamental  panel,  regardless  of  its  story  !  If  this 
picture  had  its  details  blurred  over,  so  that  we  could  no 
longer  distinguish  passengers  or  buildings  or  bridge  piers, 
if  its  general  shapes  and  contrasted  colors  were  repro- 
duced in  lacquer  on  a  Japanese  box  or  tray,  we  should  be 
immensely  pleased  with  it  as  a  bit  of  decorative  composi- 
tion. 


We  turn  over  a  few  pages  of  our  magazine  and  come  to 
a  chapter  of  Revolutionary  history  by  some  scholarly 
statesman  of  the  day.  Our  eye  is  caught  by  the  spirit 
and  dash  of  this  horseman  galloping  madly  down  a 
country  highway  (page  207).  We  hardly  need  to  be  told 
that  it  is  Paul  Revere  on  his  world-famous  errand.1  The 
horse,  excitedly  alive  to  the  emergency,  hardly  pauses  for 
a  second,  but  hurls  himself  and  his  rider  on  through  the 
star-lit  night.  This  is  alive  beast,  —  no  conventional 
wooden  rocking-horse,  but  a  thing  of  flesh  and  blood,  that 
pants  and  glares  and  quivers  as  it  goes  galloping  by. 
Nor  is  the  motion  all  in  the  horse's  legs.  Notice  how 
much  is  suggested  by  the  backward-blown  skirts  of  the 
rider's  coat,  by  the  pulling  of  the  cocked  hat  down  over 


1  This  illustration,  by  F.  C.  Yohn,  originally  appeared  in  Scribncr's 
Magazine.     The  publishers  allow  its  reproduction  here. 


PATL   EEVERE'S    lilDE.  —  Yoiin. 


208  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

the  brows,  and  by  the  cloud  of  dust  filling  the  surprised 
roadway. 

In  fact,  the  whole  picture  is  full  of  hurrying  motion. 
The  long  stride  of  the  man  in  the  foreground,  squirming 
into  his  coat  as  he  goes,  the  heavy  trot  of  the  substantial 
citizen  approaching  him  (we  cannot  see  this  worthy's 
legs,  but  we  know  his  pace  is  hurried  by  the  way  he 
clenches  his  hands),  the  excited  scampering  and  gesticu- 
lating of  the  men  by  the  tavern  door,  —  all  unite  to  make  us 
feel  ourselves  in  breathless  haste.  See  in  how  many  dif- 
ferent directions  the  principal  lines  of  these  figures  slant. 
No  two  bodies  or  two  limbs  exactly  repeat  each  other's 
direction.  The  very  effort  made  by  the  eye  to  adapt 
itself  successively  to  one  and  another  and  another,  gives 
us  a  feeling  of  the  confusion  of  the  scene.  And  note,  too, 
the  intense  strain  of  attention  in  the  nearer  fisrures, 
especially  in  the  man  with  his  back  towards  us.  It  is 
only  a  small  bit  of  his  face  which  Ave  see,  but  that  little, 
backed  by  his  good  square  shoulders,  is  charged  with  pur- 
pose and  resolution  enough  to  dare  an  invading  regiment, 
single-handed  ! 

See  how  the  detailed  drawing  of  the  figures  in  the  fore- 
ground, contrasted  with  the  dim,  indistinct  showing  of  the 
tavern  and  of  the  house  and  trees  beyond,  relegates  all 
these  latter  to  a  distance.  The  tavern  certainly  looks  sev- 
eral rods  behind  the  galloping  horse,  and  that  other  house 
with  the  gleaming  windows  is  at  least  six  or  eight  times 
as  distant  yet.  The  brilliancy  of  the  lights  in  windows 
and  doors  (secured  by  making  a  sharp  contrast  between 
surrounding  darks  and  little  bits  of  entirely  blank  space) 
adds  a  great  deal  to  the  dramatic  effect  of  the  scene,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  quite  independent  of  its  suggestion  how 
"...  then  and  there  were  hurrying  to  and  fro," 


THE    PAGES   OF   A   MAGAZINE  209 

it  makes  the  picture  a  great  deal  pleasanter  to  the  eye 
than  it  would  have  been  if  the  background  were  all  un- 
relieved gray  and  black.  As  it  is,  the  strong  Hash  of 
light  in  the  immediate  foreground  seems  not  to  be  smoth- 
ered at  once  in  the  neighboring  darkness,  but  to  flicker 
out  gradually,  lessening  and  lessening  in  the  distance,  till 
at  last  the  only  light  left  is  that  of  a  few,  silent,  medita- 
tive stars  in  the  April  sky. 


What  have  we  next?  An  article  on  lion  hunting,  full 
of  thrilling  descriptions  of  hair-breadth  'scapes  and  illus- 
trated with  drawings  of  the  noble  beasts  themselves,  — 
<  Ira  wings  not  made  upon  the  spot,  since  a  lion  whose 
jungle  privacy  has  been  invaded  cannot  be  depended  upon 
at  that  moment  for  good  manners  as  a  sitter.  One  of  our 
pictures  is  of  this  regal  pair  by  Van  Muyden.1 

Is  it  not  a  wonderful  combination  of  magnificent  lazi- 
ness and  ominous  strength?  The  grim  lines  of  those 
powerful  muzzles  have  an  absurd  likeness  to  the  corre- 
sponding lines  in  two  fluffy  kittens  that  you  could  put  in 
your  pocket ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  that  truly  kitten- 
ish way  of  narrowing  the  eyes  and  rubbing  against  another 
warm  body  sends  a  little  shiver  down  our  own  spinal 
columns  at  the  thought  of  playing  the  part  of  mouse  in  a 
drama  where  these  are  the  star  performers.  What  pitiful 
little  sticks  our  bones  would  be,  grasped  by  those  jaws  ! 

It  seems  strange,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  that  the 
male  lion,  huge  as  his  head  is  in  proportion  to  his  body, 
never  for  an  instant  looks  top  heavy  or  ridiculous.     Yet 

1  Evert  Van  Muyden,  a  Swiss  artist  who  has  done  especially  interesting 
work  from  animals.  This  illustration  is  from  an  etching  and  appeared  in 
Scribner''s  some  three  years  ago.  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons  allow 
its  reprint  here. 


210  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

exaggeration  of  the  size  of  a  head  is  almost  the  first  easy 
device  that  occurs  to  any  cheap  caricaturist  when  he 
wishes  to  make  a  man  absurd.  Does  the  saving  grace 
in  the  lion's  case  lie  in  the  plainly  seen  mechanical  struct- 
ure of  the  body's  skeleton,  where  every  line  is  significant 
of  strength  and  agility?  A  picture  like  this  sets  us  to 
thinking.  The  next  time  we  have  a  chance  to  see  a  live 
lion  wTe  shall  study  him  with  more  keenly  questioning  eyes. 

How  much  character  there  is  in  the  tails  !  A  horse's 
tail,  beautiful  as  it  is  when  perfect  according  to  nature's 
plan,  impresses  us  as  being  little  more  than  an  effective  or- 
nament. We  know  it  is  useful  as  a  fly  switch,  but  the 
owner  seems  to  use  it  in  a  casual,  incidental  fashion,  as 
a  lady  might  drive  away  a  fly  with  a  carved  and  painted 
fan.  Look,  on  the  contrary,  at  the  long,  curving  tail  of 
this  king  of  the  jungle  and  see  if  it  does  not  appear  full  of 
conscious,  self-controlled  will  power  down  to  the  very  tip. 
Spine  and  tail,  it  is  all  one,  and  the  brain  under  that 
shaggy  mane,  behind  those  watchful  eyes,  has  its  own 
uses  for  the  whole  powerful  mechanism. 

The  muscular  build  of  the  legs  and  their  traceable 
attachment  at  the  shoulder  and  hip  joints,  as  the  artist 
shows  them  here,  are  immensely  significant  in  making  up 
the  impressive  effect  of  the  picture  as  a  whole.  And  see 
how  exquisitely  the  different  kinds  of  surface  are  suggested, 
the  smooth  flanks,  the  softer,  hairier  spaces  of  the  breast, 
and  the  shaggy  luxuriance  of  my  lord's  magnificent  mane. 
Even  the  claws  —  but  let  us  not  start  again  on  that  path 
so  full  of  shuddering  suggestiveness. 

The  shadows  directly  underneath  the  bodies  add  a 
suggestion  of  tropical  sunshine,  beating  fiercely  down 
from  overhead. 

The  artist  doubtless  chose  this  particular  pose  of   the 


'■.    «■  hm&k 


O 


212  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

animals  because  lie  liked  it.  What  is  there  about  it  better 
than  a  dozen  other  poses  that  might  have  been  caught 
after  a  fashion,  by  a  kodak  in  the  zoological  gardens  ? 

The  wonderful  "  build  "  of  the  male  lion  is  so  much 
more  evident  and  impressive  when  seen  in  profile  that  we 
feel  grateful  for  that  pose,  to  begin  with.  And,  since 
one  beast  is  in  profile,  head  and  all,  are  we  not  richer  for 
a  distinct  difference  in  the  pose  of  the  female,  showing  us 
the  full  front  face  with  foreshortened  body  ?  The  two 
forms,  as  they  are  grouped  here,  are  practically  quite  dis- 
tinct and  individual ;  yet  there  is  a  unity  in  the  pose  ;  the 
two  seem  to  belong  together.  That  majestic  head  with 
the  tossing  mane  dominates  both  bodies.  And  the  vigor- 
ous curves  of  those  two  long  tails,  both  so  thoroughly  true 
to  life,  though  differing  in  direction,  serve  a  double  pur- 
pose. They  make  the  two  motionless  figures  look  much 
more  intensely  alive  than  Avould  be  the  case  if  the  tails 
were  out  of  sight,  and,  besides  that,  their  fine  curves  take 
the  eye  almost  unconsciously  and  give  us  a  sense  of  subtile, 
sinuous  grace  —  of  everlastingly  mysterious  charm  wedded 
to  what  is  terrible. 


We  turn  over  the  remaining  pages  of  the  sportsman's 
article  and  find  next  a  chapter  on  village  life  in  France. 
As  in  America,  so  in  France,  the  public  school  is  one  of 
the  most  significant  of  social  institutions,  and  the  writer 
of  our  article — let  us  say  —  explains  the  workings  of  the 
established  system  in  a  typical  country  district.  To 
brighten  the  page,  what  could  be  better  than  a  reproduc- 
tion of  Geoffroy's  1  Primary  School  in  Brittany  exhibited 
a  couple  of  years  ago  in  Paris '? 

1  Jean  Geoffrey,  a  French  artist  of  the  day.  He  has  painted  several 
other  pictures  of  school  children  that  are  deservedly  popular. 


THE    PAGES   OF   A    MAGAZINE  213 

Considering  how  much  artists  have  studied  and  painted 
children  in  home  interiors,  it  seems  a  little  odd  that  so 
few  should  have  attempted  to  portray  child  life  at  school. 
Of  course  there  have  been  a  good  many  burlesque  pres- 
entations of  school  life,  the  teacher  figuring  as  an  absurd 
figure-head  or  a  hateful  tyrant,  the  pupils  as  mischief- 
makers  ;  but  most  of  the  drawings  of  this  sort  have  had 
little  more  artistic  character  than  a  so-called  "  comic  ,: 
valentine.  It  is  only  within  a  very  few  years  that  artists 
have  fairly  begun  to  realize  what  a  delightful  field  exists 
for  them  in  the  various  phases  of  child  life  during  the 
school  years.  Geoffrey  is  one  of  the  few  who  have 
entered  here  with  genuine  feeling  for  the  subject. 

As  with  The  First  Step,  the  main  appeal  of  this  picture 
is  to  our  affections.  It  must  be  a  stolid  individual  who 
fails  to  feel  the  charm  of  the  demure  little  maid  in  the 
foreground,  planted  in  those  clumsy  wooden  shoes,  wait- 
ing her  turn  with  a  conscientious  frown  on  her  baby  face. 
The  classmate  who  reads  from  the  book  at  the  teacher's 
knee,  tracing  the  syllables  with  a  hesitating  forefinger, 
tempts  one  to  interrupt  the  halting  performance  with  a 
hug.  The  stupid  little  girl  behind  her,  gazing  vaguely 
out  of  the  window,  her  lips  absent-mindedly  parted,  will 
certainly  make  a  sad  failure  of  her  own  recitation  ;  but  we 
forgive  all  her  blunders  in  advance  for  the  sake  of  her 
quaint  face  and  figure.  The  chubby  mite  sitting  in  the 
very  corner  of  the  picture,  with  her  fat  hands  decorously 
clasped  and  her  head  so  coquettishly  tipped  to  one  side 
as  she  watches  with  awe  and  admiration  the  doings  of  her 
sage  elders  —  the  Lord  was  wise  when  he  planned  that 
babies  should  look  like  that.  No  matter  how  much  weari- 
ness, perplexity,  and  pain  come  with  them,  we  grown- 
up mortals  fall  helplessly  under  their  spell ;   and  so  each 


214  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

new  generation  is  adored  and  tended  and  spoiled  (at 
least  other  people's  children  are  spoiled)  until  by  and  by, 
through  some  incomprehensible  magic  of  that  most  in- 
comprehensible thing  called  Time}  the  babies  themselves 
melt  into  grown-up  people  and  begin  the  whole  pro- 
gramme over  again. 

This  Brittany  school-room  reminds  us  of  our  own 
school-houses  in  rare  "  back  country "  districts  where 
salesmen  for  adjustable  desks  and  patent  ventilators  have 
not  yet  penetrated ;  but  the  French  windows  and  the 
French  costumes  emphasize  its  geographical  remoteness. 
The  teacher  is  a  sweet,  womanly  girl  in  whom  we  can 
see  traces  of  childhood  very  like  that  of  her  own  charges, 
and  the  sedate  daintiness  of  her  attire  is  exquisitely 
effective  as  she  sits  erect  in  her  straight-backed  chair, 
ruling  her  small  kingdom  with  gentle  dignity.  She 
might  not  be  worth  a  large  salary  in  a  "  hoodlum  "  ward 
of  one,  of  our  own  large  cities,  but  as  guide  and  model  for 
this  handful  of  shy,  well-bred  little  maidens,  who  could 
be  better  ?  The  artist  evidently  meant  to  concentrate  our 
attention  on  the  teacher  and  the  little  circle  around  her  ; 
for  he  has  left  the  faces  and  figures  of  the  children  at  the 
desks  quite  vague  and  indistinct,  showing  them  just 
about  as  we  should  see  them  in  real  fact.  If  we  were 
giving  our  main  attention  to  the  near-by  group,  the  dis- 

1  "  Once  there  was  a  baby  Effie  ; 

She  began  to  grow. 
Now  there  isn't  any  baby, 

But  the  little  girl  we  know. 
By  and  by  the  child  will  vanish, 

The  bud  will  bloom  a  rose: 
How  can  all  the  three  be  Effie  ? 

Tell  me,  —  one  who  knows." 

—  M.  E.  B.  E.,  in  an  autograph  album. 


V> 
O 

a 

fe. 
o 

K 

o 


s 

O 

o 
o 

« 


216  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

tant  pupils  could  be,  at  the  moment,  little  more  than  a 
pleasant  blur  of  caps  and  collars  and  quiet,  oval  faces. 

Notice  how  graceful  as  well  as  natural  the  grouping 
is.  The  quadrant-shaped  curve  of  the  class  in  the  floor 
secures  a  much  more  interesting  variety  of  pose  than 
would  have  been  given  by  a  martially  straight  row. 
There  is  just  enough  difference  in  the  stature  of  the  girls 
to  bring  their  heads  at  different  levels,  and  so  avoid  stiff 
monotony  in  that  direction.  And  mark  the  delicate 
appreciation  of  effects  which  led  the  artist  to  seat  the 
teacher,  not  in  the  very  corner  of  the  picture,  but  a  little 
removed,  leaving  space  for  the  tiniest  pupils  of  all  to 
cuddle  cosily  in  beside  her.  The  eye  involuntarily  com- 
pares their  proportions  and  lines  with  hers,  feeling,  even 
though  unconsciously,  the  subtile  charm  of  the  mingling 
of  likeness  and  unlikeness  in  the  relation  of  the  child  to 
the  adult.  The  baby  figures  echo  the  woman's  seated 
pose  with  a  grave  dignity  prophetic  of  coming  years,  and 
yet  at  the  same  moment  contradict  their  own  pretty  pre- 
tence of  sober  age  by  their  roly-poly  curves  and  by  the 
light  of  those  wide  eyes,  full  of  endless,  unspoken  curios- 
ity and  wonder.     Over  them 

"...  Immortality 
Broods  like  the  day,  a  master  o'er  a  slave, 
A  presence  which  is  not  to  be  put  by." 


* 


THE   PAGES   OF  A  MAGAZINE  217 

Turn  over  the  pages  of  our  hypothetical  magazine 
once  more.  We  come  now  to  a  story,  illustrated  with 
drawings  by  Gil  (son.1  The  story,  we  will  suppose,  is  a 
fanciful  retelling  of  Pandora's  fatal  thirst  for  general 
information,  its  setting  and  details  being  a  mixture  of 
classic  vagueness  and  end-of-the-century  explicitness. 
One  of  the  Gibson  drawings  shows  the  fabled  heroine, 
as  on  page  219,  kneeling  before  the  closed  casket  in  an 
agony  of  inquisitiveness,  yet  trying  with  all  her  might 
to  keep  from  lifting  the  lid. 

This  drawing  by  a  master  is  worth  careful  study,  both 
of  its  effects  and  its  means  of  producing  effects.  As  to 
the  expressiveness  of  the  pose,  there  can  be  but  one 
opinion.  If  ever  a  woman  was  "  dying  "  with  curiosity, 
this  is  the  one.  See  how  the  backward  slant  of  the 
thighs  and  the  forward  pull  of  the  trunk  demonstrate 
her  strife  against  herself.  See  how  the  intentness  of  her 
stare  at  the  mysterious  casket  is  complemented  by  the 
rigid  clasp  of  her  hands  behind  her  back,  the  parted  lips 
shoAving  breathless,  excited  interest  in  her  own  experi- 
ence. One  cannot  help  thinking  that  her  present  curi- 
osity extends  even  to  the  question  how  long  she  can  hold 
out  against  the  temptation  to  investigate. 

When  we  look  more  closely  at  the  picture,  examining 
its  lines  in  detail,  we  are  very  likely  surprised  to  find 
how  few  and  scratchy  the  lines  are,  and  apparently  how 
incomplete.  If  we  try  to  trace  the  lines  of  the  neck  and 
bust,  for  example,  we  find  actual  gaps  in  them  as  if  the 

1  Charles  Dana  Gibson,  at  present  the  most  popular  of  American 
illustrators  in  subjects  where  women  are  introduced.  The  drawing  here 
reproduced,  originally  made  in  pen  and  ink,  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
prepared  as  an  example  of  sketching  from  the  pose,  and  was  published 
by  the  Prang  Educational  Company  in  one  of  their  text-books  of  element- 
ary art  instruction. 


218  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

lines  had  been  accidentally  broken.  Accidentally  ?  Not 
at  all ;  that  is  just  the  point.  These  open  spaces  are  so 
left  with  definite  intention.  They  prevent  the  outline 
from  being  hard  and  wiry,  and  (as  we  shall  find  if  we 
once  more  hold  the  page  off  at  such  a  distance  as  to  see 
only  the  effect  of  the  drawing  as  a  whole)  actually  give 
the  eye  an  impression  that  strong  light  is  falling  on  the 
surface  of  flesh  and  gown,  and  that  the  exact  outline  is 
lost  here  and  there  in  the  play  of  light  and  shade.  There 
is  another  break  in  the  line  at  the  woman's  bare  right 
shoulder.  Here  what  we  should  really  see,  in  a  live 
woman  thus  posed,  would  be  a  curving  space  of  flesh 
around  the  top  of  the  arm,  foreshortened  into  nothing 
whatever.  The  whole  width  of  this  volume's  cover  may  be 
similarly  foreshortened  into  nothing,  if  we  hold  the  book 
horizontal  in  front  of  us  with  the  upper  surface  just  on 
a  level  with  the  eyes.  How  can  that  sort  of  elusive  fact 
be  expressed  with  a  pen  dipped  in  ink?  Mr.  Gibson, 
being  an  artist  of  resources,  leads  his  outline  towards 
this  point  and  then  leaves  it  altogether,  making  us  feel 
the  rest  in  imagination.  Only  a  clever  draughtsman  can 
do  this  as  successf  ully  as  Gibson  does  it ;  but,  if  it  is 
well  done,  it  adds  greatly  to  the  effect,  as  here,  where 
strong  light  falls  on  the  softly  rounded  limb. 

We  feel  when  we  first  look  at  this  kneeling  Pandora 
that  she  is  nervously  alive  from  the  crown  of  her  head 
to  the  soles  of  her  feet.  Have  not  the  clinging  draperies 
a  good  deal  to  do  with  this  effect  ?  The  folds  of  stuff  be- 
tween her  knees  take  the  light  in  uneven  masses  mixed 
with  shadows  ;  the  part  falling  down  her  right  side  is 
smoother  and  takes  the  light  evenly,  filled  out  as  it  is 
by  the  long,  lithe  curves  of  her  body.  And,  again,  the 
part  of  the  drapery  which  lies  behind  her  takes  the  light 


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220  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

evenly  just  where  the  drapery  lies  smooth  over  the  leg 
beneath  ;  but  on  either  side,  where  it  falls  into  rumpled 
masses,  the  stuff  is  largely  in  shadow.  So  the  mere  in- 
dication of  light  and  shade  on  the  draperies,  in  a  rough, 
sketchy  way,  is  made  to  show  that  there  is  a  substantial 
creature  of  flesh  and  blood  behind  the  rippling  folds  of 
the  classic  gown. 


Following  the  story  of  Pandora's  curiosity  and  its 
consequences  comes  an  illustrated  article  about  a  great 
flower  show,  with  critical  notes  on  the  latest  methods  of 
floriculture,  and  reminiscences  of  former  favorites  now 
gone  or  going  out  of  fashion.  And  here  we  will  suppose 
we  come  upon  (page  223)  Mr.  Ross  Turner's 1  drawing  of 
a  simple  potted  geranium. 

Nothing  could  be  much  farther  from  the  sort  of  flower 
drawing  one  sees  in  cheap  catalogues  sent  out  by  average 
seedsmen.  From  an  artistic  point  of  view,  the  hard,  wiry 
outlines  and  confused  multiplicity  of  details  in  the  cata- 
logue drawings  are  to  this  drawing  of  the  geranium  what 
the  crude,  scrawly  illustrations  in  the  colored  supplements 
of  the  Sunday  newspapers  are  to  the  magazine  illustra- 
tions which  we  are  considering  in  this  chapter.  If  the 
catalogue  draughtsman  made  his  hard-lined  sketches  ab- 
solutely accurate,  we  should  perhaps  not  find  fault  with 
him  for  their  lack  of  beauty,  assuming  that  his  aim  was 
merely  scientific,  not  assthetic.  But,  in  too  many  cases, 
the  drawings  are  equally  unbeautiful  and  untrue. 

Mr.   Turner's  geranium  does   not   profess    to    give   us 

1  Mr.  Turner's  paintings  of  landscape  and  flowers  have  had  a  wide 
reputation  for  years,  and  his  work  in  pencil  is  receiving  increasing 
recognition. 


THE    PAGES   OF   A  MAGAZINE  221 

definite  points  about  its  precise  technical  variety.  It 
gives  ns  not  so  much  a  formal  lesson  in  botany  as  a  lesson 
in  beauty. 

In  the  first  place,  the  artist  asks  us  to  look  at  it,  with 
him,  from  one  side  rather  than  from  above,  and  from  a 
quite  low  level,  so  that  we  may  actually  look  up  into  the 
flower  cluster  —  even  up  under  some  of  the  spreading 
leaves.  Those  of  us  who  have  ever  lain  flat  on  the 
ground  among  growing  grasses  and  clover,  know  what 
a  revelation  it  brings  to  thus  put  oneself  on  the  level  of 
green,  growing  things,  seeing  life  and  the  world  from 
their  standpoint.  Here  we  do  almost  the  same  kind  of 
thing,  thanks  to  the  angle  at  which  Mr.  Turner  chose  to 
show  his  geranium. 

See  how  exquisitely  the  artist  caught  the  characteristic 
upward  and  outward  thrust  of  the  leaf  stems.  There  is  a 
certain  robust  vigor  about  the  up-springing  curves  of  a 
healthy  geranium  which  is  irresistibly  attractive  and 
cheery.  Although  the  beginnings  of  the  stalks  are  hid- 
den from  sight  by  the  nearer  leaves,  we  can  see  in 
imagination  just  how  they  start  from  the  short,  sturdy, 
main  stem.  The  geranium  has  its  own  distinct  and  self- 
respectful  way  of  growing,  and  this  the  artist  shows,  un- 
obtrusively, but  with  clear  comprehension.  He  wants  us 
to  see,  too,  the  exquisite,  curving  veins  into  which  the 
leaf  stalk  divides  its  fibres  at  the  upper  end,  spreading 
them  out  like  the  ribs  of  an  umbrella  or  the  sticks  of 
a  fan,  to  support  the  broad,  heart-shaped  expanse  of 
tender,  breathing  tissue,  the  velvety  green  leaf.  Notice 
how  perfectly  this  wonderful  bit  of  plant  engineering  is 
shown  in  that  further  leaf,  which  is  a  little  tilted  to  one 
side.  Engineering?  That  is  too  mechanical  a  word  for 
it.      As  we  look  up  under  the  leaf  in  this  way,  the  stem 


222  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

seems  more  like  a  live  arm  with  flexible  fingers  at  the 
end,  consciously  holding  up  its  own  soft  palm  to  the  sky 
to  receive  the  gifts  of  air  and  sunshine. 

Then  look  at  the  flower  cluster,  borne  so  proudly  on 
that  tall  stalk  which  grew  up  and  up  on  purpose  to  dis- 
play it.  Geraniums  almost  always  carry  their  flowery 
heads  high,  with  the  gay  audacity  of  those  who  take  our 
admiration  for  granted.  There  is  nothing  shy  about 
their  dispositions,  although  the  individual  blossoms  do 
gather  together  in  a  bunch,  like  bright-eyed  girls  pre- 
tending to  need  the  support  of  each  other's  companion- 
ship. See,  again,  how  perfectly  the  artist  caught  the 
characteristic  angle  at  which  the  separate  blossom-stems 
leave  the  summit  of  their  common  stalk ;  notice  what 
a  charming  hint  we  have  of  the  shadowy  spaces  among 
and  under  the  blossoms,  between  them  and  the  upper  end 
of  the  single,  long,  straight  stalk. 

Mr.  Turner  has  a  master's  eye  for  color,  and,  as  we  see, 
knows  how  to  show  us  something  of  the  colors  of  this 
vigorous  plant,  even  when  his  fingers  hold  nothing  more 
than  a  lead  pencil.  The  variations  of  dark  and  light  on 
the  leaves  suggest  at  once  differences  in  color  effect,  — 
differences  mainly  inherent  in  the  actual  leaves,  but  here 
and  there  intensified  by  the  influence  of  light  and  shade 
to  dilute  or  deepen  the  color  effect  as  the  case  may  be. 
See  the  charming  difference  between  the  upper  and  lower 
sides  of  the  extreme  right-hand  leaf.  See  how  the  skele- 
ton veins  show  through  the  two  leaves  in  the  immediate 
foreground,  in  one  case  lighter  than  the  rest  of  the  leaf, 
in  the  other  case  deeper,  like  spreading  streaks  of  stain. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  satisfy  ourselves  as  to  the  exact 
hue  of  the  blossoms,  but  the  artist  surety  must  mean  us 
to  see  them,  in  our  mind's  eye,  with  some  delicate  tint  no 


GERANIUM.  —  Koss  Tuhner. 


224  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

stronger  than  that  light-colored  leaf  which  overhangs  the 
edge  of  the  pot,  —  that  is  to  say,  they  cannot  be  a  very 
deep,  dark  red  ;  they  must  be  something  airier  and  more 
ethereal  than  dark  red.  And  see  how,  even  then,  the  sun- 
light falling  on  the  curving  petals  is  reflected  here  and 
there  from  their  satiny  surface,  giving  us,  in  those  spots, 
just  gleams  of  light  with  only  a  faint  flavor  of  any  color 
at  all. 


What  have  we  next  ?  A  poem,  let  us  say,  full  of  the 
mystery  and  music  of  a  summer  night,  and  down  at  the  foot 
of  the  page  this  little  wood-cut  for  a  tail-piece.1  We  get 
the  most  beautiful  effect  of  it  if  we  hold  the  page  at 
arm's  length.  Simple  and  unpretentious  as  it  is,  could 
anything  be  more  perfect  after  its  own  fashion  ?  We 
have  seen  a  silver  moon  and  gossamer  clouds  look  just 
like  this.  The  fleecy  masses  seem  to  float  by  while  we 
watch  them.  The  silvery  disc  of  the  moon  almost  seems 
to  change  the  intensity  of  its  light,  growing  dim  behind 
its  veils,  then  shining  out  again,  brighter  than  ever.  The 
dark  masses  of  the  trees  in  the  corner,  by  their  contrast 
with  the  rest  of  the  picture,  give  the  clouds  a  far-off  look 
(at  least,  far  off  in  comparison  with  the  distance  of  the 
trees  themselves ;  clouds  on  a  moon-lit  night  almost 
always  look  nearer  than  clouds  in  the  daytime).  Besides, 
see  how  much  more  filmy  and  silvery  the  clouds  look  for 
being  contrasted  with  the  trees  in  point  of  color  and  den- 
sity. See  those  little  gleaming  touches  on  the  edges  of 
the  clouds  here  and  there,  and  especially  the  little  pool 

1  This  is  one  of  Ernest  Longfellow's  illustrations  to  the  poet's  works, 
engraved  by  Andrews.  It  was  made  some  years  ago  for  a  special  quarto 
edition  of  Longfellow,  and  is  reprinted  here  by  permission  of  the  pub- 
lishers, Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


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2'2Q  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

of  light  just  below  the  floating  disc,  where  the  moonlight 
seems  to  have  dripped  liquid  silver.  We  feel  like  saying 
to  the  artist,  "  Oh,  I  know  just  that  look.  I  have  seen  it 
so  a  hundred  times.  I  understand  exactly  what  you  have 
in  your  mind  to  show  me." 

If  we  care  to  go  a  step  farther  and  say  —  "But  how  did 
you  do  it?" — we  find  ourselves  on  the  threshold  of  a 
magician's  workshop. 

We  have  already  noticed  that  the  trees  in  the  corner 
have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  effects  of  distance  and 
of  gossamer  texture  and  of  silvery  color  in  the  clouds. 
And  does  not  the  dark  bit  of  open  sky  close  by  the  moon 
help  (by  its  suddenly  strong  contrast  of  color)  to  make 
the  moon  look  a  great  deal  lighter  and  brighter  than  the 
clouds  ?  We  should  almost  say  at  our  first  glance  that 
the  moon  is  brighter  than  the  blank  space  in  the  margin 
of  the  page,  though  we  know  that  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
impossible  under  the  circumstances  ;  indeed,  if  we  look 
closely  at  the  moon's  disc,  we  discover  it  is  really  less 
light  than  the  margins  of  the  page,  being  covered  with 
tiny  dotted  lines  of  black.  Its  apparent  brilliance  is 
purely  the  effect  of  contrast  with  the  darks  of  the  sky 
and  the  trees.  (In  parenthesis,  just  look  at  those  trees 
and  see  how,  as  our  eye  becomes  more  accustomed  to 
them,  they  show  delicate  differences  in  their  degrees  of 
darkness.  Gradually,  we  can  distinguish  a  good  many 
separate  masses  of  foliage,  one  beyond  another.  They 
stand  out,  after  a  little,  as  objects  stand  out,  after  a  while, 
in  a  dusky  room,  where  on  our  first  entrance  we  could  see 
only  one  conglomerate  mass  of  shade.) 

If  now  we  examine  the  print  near  by,  and  quite  closely, 
we  may  be  amazed  to  see  by  what  .means  and  methods  we 
have  been  given  all  these  effects  of  dusky  tree  masses  and 


THE    PAGES   OF   A   MAGAZINE  227 

flouting"  clouds  and  deep  distances  of  sky.  What  we  actu- 
ally have  on  our  page  of  white  paper  is  merely  a  series  of 
delicate  lines,  sometimes  almost  straight  and  parallel  and 
of  even  width,  giving  equal  spaces  of  black  ink  and  white 
paper,  sometimes  zigzagging  and  tangling  themselves 
into  knots  of  black,  sometimes  thin  and  wavy  with  the 
white  spaces  wider  than  the  black  ones,  and  now  and 
then  (as,  for  instance,  close  to  the  moon)  we  have  blots 
of  solid  black.  And  all  these  whites  are  nothing  but 
paper,  and  all  these  blacks  are  nothing  but  printer's  ink. 
Talk  about  oriental  magicians  !  When  four  square  inches 
of  paper  irregularly  streaked  with  ink  can  give  us  the 
delights  of  looking  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  miles 
into  the  summer  sky,  we  have  little  need  to  envy  the 
spectators  at  the  shows  of  India.  The  simplest  stay-at- 
home  of  us  all  has  marvels  waiting  at  his  elbow  to  be 
appreciated. 

Let  us  give  the  picture  one  more  glance  as  we  turn  the 
page,  noticing  how  beautifully  the  narrow  oblong  seems 
to  have  been  planned.  It  is  as  unlike  Castaigne's  Land- 
ing (page  203)  as  it  well  can  be,  yet  we  recognize  the 
presence  of  an  element  common  to  both  ;  we  have  here 
a  certain  intangible  harmony  and  beauty  born  of  the 
inherent  relationship  of  the  dark  and  light  masses  to  each 
other,  and  of  the  long  oblique  lines  and  the  tall  vertical 
lines  to  each  other.  Someway,  regardless  of  their  repre- 
senting beautiful  things,  they  seem  beautiful  in  them- 
selves, arranged  thus,  in  just  this  given  space.  We  may 
not  be  able  to  determine  just  why  the  tiny  picture  is  more 
beautiful  with  that  one  tall  poplar,  standing  high  up  into 
the  sky,  than  it  would  have  been  without  it,  still  we  are 
conscious  that  the  result  would  not  be  half  as  pleasing  in 
its  absence.      We  may  not  be  able  to  determine  just  why 


228  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

that  big,  irregular,  slanting  rent  in  the  clouds  in  the 
upper  right-hand  portion  of  the  space  makes  the  picture 
more  beautiful  than  it  would  have  been  were  the  corner 
left  a  soft,  even  gray  ;  but  we  feel  its  beauty,  and  that  is 
enough. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  JOURNEY   FROM   ARTIST  TO    READER 

A  RCHJEOLOGISTS  tell  us  that  one  of  the  oldest 
drawings  now  in  existence  is  probably  the  rude  out- 
line of  an  animal  scratched  on  the  surface  of  a  reindeer 
bone  by  some  prehistoric  man,  and  now  treasured  in  a 
foreign  museum.  It  is  "  a  far  cry,,,  as  our  transatlantic 
cousins  say,  from  that  day  to  the  present,  and,  in  the 
interval,  many  are  the  ways  that  have  been  thought  out 
and  worked  out,  both  for  making  original  drawings  and  for 
preserving  and  multiplying  copies  of  them.  Some  readers 
of  this  little  book  —  without  caring  to  go  deeply  into  the 
science  of  modern  processes  of  reproduction  —  may  like 
to  trace  the  chief  stages  through  which  such  illustrations 
as  these  pass  on  their  way  from  the  artist's  hand  to  the 
reader's. 

Most  of  the  illustrations  in  this  book  were  printed 
from  what  are  called  "  half-tone "  plates.  The  Sistine 
Madonna,  for  example,  on  page  169,  is  a  half-tone 
"  engraving,"  so  called,  though  the  word  "  engraving  "  is 
not  quite  correctly  used  in  such  a  case.1  A  half-tone 
print  can  be  identified  as  such  by  the  division  of  its  chief 

1  The  word  "engrave"  comes  through  the  Latin  from  a  Greek  root  mean- 
ing to  cut ;  and  in  half-tone  proper  no  cutting  is  done.  Such  changes  as 
are  made  in  the  surface  of  the  plate  are  made  hy  the  corrosive  action  of 
an  acid  and  not  by  a  knife  or  graver.  However,  most  good  half-tones  are 
made  so  by  retouching  the  plates  by  hand,  as  explained  on  page  236,  so 
the  word  '-engraving"  becomes  appropriate,  after  all. 

229 


280  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTUKES 

surfaces,  both  dark  and  light,  into  tiny  spaces,  the  dividing 
lines  crossing  at  right  angles  to  each  other.  Far-sighted 
eyes  may  need  a  microscope  to  distinguish  these  fine  sub- 
divisions, but  to  others  they  are  quite  easily  perceptible. 

The  very  darkest  parts  of  a  half-tone  print,  e.g.  the 
dee})  folds  of  the  curtains  in  the  Sistine  Madonna,  seem 
to  be  a  blurred  mass  of  black.  The  lighter  parts  of  the 
curtain  reveal  themselves,  on  close  observation,  to  be 
made  up  of  a  network  of  black  lines  enclosing  tiny  white 
spaces.  Look  next  at  the  drapery  over  the  Mother's 
head  and  shoulders.  It  will  be  found  that  its  variations 
of  light  and  dark  are  produced  by  variations  in  the  close- 
ness and  thickness  of  the  black  network.  On  the  outer- 
most folds  of  the  drapery  about  the  Mother's  left  shoulder, 
the  network  shows  through  a  microscope  that  it  is  very 
thin ;  here  and  there  are  breaks  in  its  lines,  as  in  a  bit  of 
cloth  worn  to  gossamer  thinness.  And,  in  the  sky  just 
behind  and  beyond  the  shoulder,  the  network  has  grown 
so  thin  that  the  lines  are  no  longer  continuous,  but  broken 
up  into  a  series  of  mere  dots,  these  dots  marking  the 
points  where  two  lines  should  cross.  The  lines  between 
the  dots  have  apparently  melted  into  open  Avhite  space. 
In  fact,  if  we  examine  the  surface  of  the  print  closely,  we 
find  that  its  differences  of  color,  all  the  way  from  black 
to  a  faint,  vapor-like  gray,  depend  upon  the  relative  pre- 
dominance of  black  lines  or  of  white  spaces.  The  manner 
in  which  these  variations  of  the  network  are  produced 
will  be  explained  in  the  following  pages,  for  those  who 
are  interested  in  the  ingenious  devices  of  modern  art 
industry. 


3 


THE   JOURNEY   FROM   ARTIST   TO    READER  231 

Raphael's  original  painting  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  was 
made  in  oil  colors.  The  actual  canvas  lias  done  an  un- 
usual amount  of  travelling-  in  its  day  (as  noted  on  page 
166),  but  it  seems  to  be  permanently  located  now  in  the 
famous  gallery  at  Dresden.  The  picture  has  been  photo- 
graphed several  times,  and  it  was  from  one  of  the  photo- 
graphs that  our  print  was  made. 

We  are  so  used  to  the  word  "  photograph  "  that  we  sel- 
dom think  what  marvels  it  stands  for.  In  this  particular 
case,  we  had,  first,  Raphael's  canvas,  coated  by  him  with 
various  colored  pigments  and  protected  by  an  outer  coat  of 
transparent  varnish.  The  photographer's  camera  was  set 
up  before  the  picture  as  it  might  have  been  before  a  liv- 
ing sitter,  the  light  reflected  from  its  vari-colored  surfaces 
passing  through  the  arranged  lenses  and  falling  on  a  plate 
of  glass  coated  with  a  stuff  whose  chemical  condition 
made  it  exquisitely  sensitive  to  the  influence  of  light. 
What  the  light  actually  did  to  this  sensitive  substance  was 
roughly  analogous  to  what  it  does  to  the  pigments  and 
dye-stuffs  in  our  carpets  and  curtains  and  wall  papers  ; 
indeed,  to  our  own  skin,  turning  the  surfaces  darker  or 
lighter  according  to  their  chemical  make-up  :  it  broke  up 
the  original  chemical  constitution  of  the  sensitive  sub- 
stance and  changed  it  into  a  different  compound.  Light 
reflected  upon  it  from  a  dark  red  surface  had  a  certain 
degree  of  influence  to  change  it.  Light  reflected  from  a 
blue  surface  had  a  different  degree  of  influence,  and  so 
on  ;  and,  besides,  variations  in  the  intensity  of  the  light 
produced  different  degrees  of  change  in  the  uniformly 
sensitized  surface  of  the  glass  plate.  Wherever  a  very 
strong  light  fell  (e.g.  from  the  Mother's  forehead,  from 
the  clouds  immediately  around  her,  etc.),  the  chemical 
condition   of    the   coating   on   the   plate    was    very   much 


232  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

changed.  Wherever  a  light  of  medium  strength  fell 
(e.g.  from  Mary's  feet,  below  her  draperies),  the  coating 
was  less  affected.  Where  comparatively  little  light  fell 
(e.g.  on  the  parts  receiving  reflections  from  the  shadowed 
folds  of  the  green  curtains  in  the  top  of  the  picture),  the 
plate's  coating  was  but  little  affected.  All  the  inter- 
mediate variations  in  the  light  produced  correspondingly 
varying  degrees  of  change  on  the  plate. 

This  plate,  known  in  photographic  parlance  as  the 
"  negative,"  was  taken  out  of  the  camera  after  a  proper 
length  of  exposure,  and  put  through  a  series  of  chemical 
baths  and  water  baths  to  "  develop  "  the  image  cast  on  it 
through  the  lens.  The  effect  of  these  baths,  on  the  whole, 
was  to  dissolve  away  those  parts  of  the  sensitive  coating 
which  had  not  been  changed  by  the  impact  of  any  strong 
light  (i.e.  in  the  dark  portions  of  the  picture),  thinning, 
in  various  delicate  degrees,  the  same  coating  in  places 
where  it  had  been  slightly  affected  by  medium  light,  and 
leaving  it  practically  intact  upon  the  glass  in  places 
where  the  strongest  lights  had  fallen  on  it  from  the 
more  highly  illuminated  spaces  of  the  picture.  After 
being  thus  developed,  the  "  negative  "  appeared  complete, 
the  glass  plate  being  quite  transparent  in  places  where 
the  picture  should  be  dark,  veiled  by  a  thin  film  in  parts 
where  there  should  be  a  medium  light,  and  covered  with 
its  opaque  coat  in  the  places  where  there  should  be  very 
light  effects. 

The  next  process  was  "  printing  "  on  paper  coated  with 
another  composition  of  chemicals  extremely  sensitive  to 
the  influence  of  light.  The  glass  negative  was  laid  over 
the  paper  and  the  two  were  exposed  together  to  the  light 
of  the  open  sky  for  a  suitable  length  of  time.  Wherever 
the  glass  was  transparent  (darkest  parts  of  the  picture), 


THE   JOURNEY   FROM    ARTIST   TO    READER  233 

the  light  passed  through  to  the  paper  underneath  and 
turned  the  coating  of  the  paper  a  rich,  dark  brown. 
Wherever  the  glass  was  protected  by  an  opaque  coating 
(lightest  parts  of  the  picture),  the  coating  of  the  paper 
underneath  was  protected  and  left  unchanged,  i.e.  light 
colored.  Wherever  the  glass  was  more  or  less  thinly 
veiled  by  a  half-removed  coating  (parts  of  the  picture 
intermediate  between  very  light  and  very  dark),  the  light 
penetrated  more  or  less  through  to  the  coated  paper 
underneath,  and  changed  its  color  in  varying  degrees. 
After  a  suitable  length  of  exposure,  the  paper  was  re- 
moved and  put  through  a  series  of  baths  which  "  fixed  " 
(i.e.  made  permanent)  the  various  degrees  of  color 
change  on  the  paper,  washing  away  such  chemical  ele- 
ments as  would  tend  to  continue  the  changes  in  color. 
As  a  final  result,  the  paper  appeared  dark  where  dim 
light  fell  from  the  dark  parts  of  the  picture,  light  where 
strong  light  fell  from  the  light  parts  of  the  picture,  with 
all  sorts  of  intermediate  degrees,  —  in  short,  there  was 
the  finished  photograph,  such  as  travellers  bring  home 
from  the  foreign  shops  and  dealers  import  for  those  of 
us  who  stay  at  home.1 


Next  came  the  making  of  the  half-tone  block  for 
the  printer.  Our  photograph  sat  for  its  own  picture, 
in  turn,  with  a  pair  of  specially  prepared  sheets  of 
glass  interposed  like  a  screen  between  the  lens  and  the 
"  negative "    plate,    in   the   camera.     Each    one    of   these 

1  Sometimes  the  photography  of  an  original  painting  involves  compli- 
cated problems,  owing  to  circumstances  of  situation  and  lighting.  For 
instance,  Michelangelo's  Jeremiah  (page  183)  is  on  the  ceiling  of  a 
room  whose  lighting  is  far  from  ideal.  In  such  cases  artificial  lighting 
and  reflecting  mirrors  are  often  necessary  to  help  out  the  camera. 


234  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

glass  plates  had  been  covered  with  parallel  lines  ruled 
with  the  greatest  precision,  from  one  hundred  and  fifty 
to  two  hundred  lines  being  ruled  to  an  inch,  and  cut 
or  rather  eaten  into  the  surface  of  the  glass  by  an  acid, 
the  grooves  being  filled  with  a  black  pigment.  The 
two  screens,  when  in  use,  were  set  up  closely  face  to 
face  so  that  their  ruled  lines  crossed  each  other  at 
right  angles.  The  negative  taken  through  this  inter- 
vening screen  bore  the  image  of  the  original  photograph 
covered  by  a  microscopically  fine  network  of  cross  lines, 
the  shapes  in  the  picture  being  practically  divided  into 
myriads  of  microscopic  spaces. 

Instead  of  printing  from  this  negative  to  a  sheet  of 
prepared  paper,  as  in  ordinary  photography,  the  next 
procedure  was  printing  from  the  negative  to  the  surface 
of  a  finely  polished  plate  of  copper.  This  copper  plate 
had  been  prepared  by  coating  with  certain  chemical 
preparations  highly  sensitive  to  the  action  of  light. 
When  being  printed1  the  coating  of  those  parts  of  the 
copper  plate  which  were  exposed  to  strong  light  (i.e. 
the  parts  under  clean,  clear  glass  in  the  negative,  the 
parts  corresponding  to  dark  portions  of  the  picture  and 
to  the  fine  network  of  the  screen)  were  so  changed  as 
to  become  insoluble  in  water.  The  coating  over  the 
light  parts  of  the  picture  could  be,  and  was,  washed 
off  after  printing.  Then  the  plate  was  exposed  to  a 
strong  heat,  which  changed  the  still  adherent  parts  of 
the  coating  to  a  hard,  protecting  enamel. 

Next,  the  surface  of  the  plate  was  treated  to  a  bath 
of    corrosive    acid   which   ate    away   the    surface   of    the 

1  Printing  both  on  paper  and  on  copper  or  other  metals  can  now  be 
done  by  strong  electric  light,  without  depending  always  on  strong  day- 
light as  used  to  be  the  case. 


THE   JOURNEY   FROM    ARTIST   TO   READER  235 

copper  wherever  it  was  unprotected,  that  is  to  say,  in 
all  the  tiny  spaces  between  the  cross  lines  where  the 
picture  was  light-colored  and  no  enamel  coating  adhered 
to  the  plate.  In  the  lighter  parts  of  the  picture  the 
acid  ate  more  deeply  into  the  open  spaces  within  the 
network,  even  encroaching  a  little  on  the  boundary  walls 
of  these  spaces  (the  lines  of  enamel-coated  network), 
thinning  them,  and  making  their  upper  edges,  i.e.  the 
network  lines,  narrower.  In  the  very  lightest  parts 
of  all,  the  acid,  which  began  by  attacking  the  open  dots 
of  white  space  between  the  lines,  went  so  far  as  to 
eat  away  most  of  the  boundary  lines,  leaving  only  dots 
of  enamel-tipped  copper  standing  where  two  lines  had 
crossed.  The  whole  surface  of  the  plate  was  thus 
changed  from  uniform  smoothness  into  fine  alternations 
of  relief  (enamel-coated  parts)  and  depression.  In  the 
darkest  parts  of  the  plate  a  great  deal  of  the  surface 
was  left  in  relief,  untouched.  In  the  lightest  parts  of 
the  plate  most  of  the  surface  was  depressed,  tiny  dots 
only  being  left  in  relief  ;  in  parts  midway  between  light 
and  dark,  the  portions  in  relief  and  the  depressed  por- 
tions were,  on  the  whole,  about  equal  in  area. 

The  copper  plate  was  then  mounted  on  a  block  of 
wood  to  bring  it  up  to  the  height  of  ordinary  printing 
type.  When  inked  and  pressed  against  the  paper  of 
our  book  page,  the  parts  in  relief  naturally  left  their 
imprint,  the  depressed  parts  leaving  blanks  ;  where  the 
relief  parts  were  in  the  greatest  majority,  with  strong, 
close  reticulations,  the  print  came  out  dark  ;  where  the 
relief  parts  were  reduced  to  mere  dots,  standing  up  out 
of  comparatively  large  depressed  areas,  the  print  came 
out  light  ;  all  sorts  of  delicate,  intermediate  gradations  in 
effect  ("half-tones,"  i.e.  tones  between  dark  and  light) 


236  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

were  produced  by  differences  in  the  proportion  of  relief 
space  to  depressed  space.1 

Sometimes  handwork  is  necessary,  in  addition  to  the 
"  process  "  work,  to  make  a  half-tone  plate  give  a  satis- 
factory effect.  See,  for  example,  in  the  print  of  Hol- 
bein's Madonna  of  the  Burgomaster  (page  157)  the  fine 
streaks  of  actual  white  in  the  veil  which  partly  covers 
the  forehead  of  the  middle  woman  kneeling  at  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  picture.  The  delicate  shade  of  differ- 
ence, shown  by  the  photographs,  between  the  uncovered 
flesh  about  the  eyebrows  and  the  covered  portion  with 
the  clinging  veil,  was  lost  in  the  course  of  the  mechanical 
processes  of  half-tone  reproduction  ;  but  it  remained  pos- 
sible to  bring  out  a  difference  between  the  two  by  using 
a  hand  tool  on  the  metal  block.  What  the  workman 
did  was  to  cut  out  parts  of  the  veil  with  a  sharp  en- 
graving tool,  leaving  delicate  grooves  in  the  plate  deep 
enough  to  prevent  the  plate  from  carrying  any  ink  at 
all  to  the  paper  in  those  streaks  where  the  tool  cut ; 
that  is  to  say,  so  that,  in  printing,  the  streaks  would  be 
left  quite  white.  These  white  lines  are  unobtrusive,  but 
they  serve  their  purpose,  restoring  to  the  veil  the  filmy 
effect  which  it  had   in  the    photograph,   and    saving   us 

1  The  difference  between  the  relief  and  the  depression,  i.e.  the  depth 
of  the  acid's  corrosion,  was  in  fact  extremely  slight,  so  slight  that  one 
unaccustomed  to  the  examination  of  half-tone  plates  might  not  have  sup- 
posed that  one  part  stood  out  enough  more  than  another  to  produce  any 
effect  ;  but,  inked  and  pressed  against  a  finely  finished  paper,  such  as  is 
always  used  for  half-tones,  each  change  from  relief  to  depression  betrayed 
itself. 

Any  one  who  cares  to  see  what  slight  variations  in  the  "  relief  "  of  a 
surface  are  printable,  so  to  speak,  can  experiment  by  rubbing  his  own 
finger  tips  in  the  dust  made  by  sharpening  a  common  lead  pencil,  and  then 
pressing  them  on  a  smooth,  finely  finished  paper.  Every  microscopic  ridge 
and  groove  in  the  skin  will  be  found  to  register  itself,  in  alternate  dark 
and  light. 


THE   JOURNEY    FROM   ARTIST   TO    READER  237 

from  the  loss  of  the  artist's  beautiful  contrast  between 
the  upper  and  the  lower  parts  of  the  forehead. 

In  the  reproduction  of  Peixotto's  picture  of  the  Boston 
Public  Library,  on  page  199,  there  is  also  a  bit  of  judicious 
tool  work,  e.g.  in  the  globe  of  the  arc  light,  and  the  strong 
lights  on  the  ground  at  the  foot  of  the  tall  post,  etc.  The 
artist's  vivid  effects  of  light  here  were  more  or  less  dulled 
in  the  course  of  the  mechanical  processes  of  reproduction, 
and  were  restored  by  cutting  out  specks  and  streaks  of 
the  surface  of  the  plate  in  these  places,  so  as  to  keep  the 
paper  here  perfectly  free  from  even  the  finest  dots  of 
ink,  i.e.  brilliantly  white.  Such  retouching  of  half-tone 
plates,  in  order  to  be  successful,  must  be  done  by  people 
with  good  artistic  appreciation  as  well  as  manual  skill. 
In  the  best  establishments  it  is,  in  fact,  usually  done  by 
men  or  women  who  would  be  equal  to  the  task  of  thus 
cutting  or  "  engraving "  the  whole  picture,  without  the 
mechanical  aid  of  the  corrosive  acid  at  all.  The  time 
and  expense  involved  in  having  a  block  prepared  entirely 
by  hand  by  a  thoroughly  accomplished  engraver  are,  how- 
ever, so  much  greater  than  in  the  case  of  a  reproduction 
by  mechanical  processes,  that  book  and  magazine  illustra- 
tions are  now  done  almost  always  according  to  the  newer 
methods,  the  engraver  reserving  his  artistic  feeling  and 
skill  for  the  retouching  of  the  metal  block  to  remedy  its 
defects  and  increase  its  excellences. 

Half-tone  plates  are  often  made  from  other  originals 
besides  paintings  or  photographs  of  paintings.  Turner's 
Geranium  (page  223)  and  Church's  Hare  and  Tortoise 
(page  73)  were  reproduced  in  half-tone  from  pencil  draw- 
ings, the  artist's  original  sketches  being  taken  for  starting- 
points,  just  as  Raphael's  painted  canvas  was  taken  for  a 
starting-point  in  the  Sistine  Madonna. 


238  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

The  domestic  interior  by  Oscar  Pletscli,  on  page  57, 
gives  us  a  case  where  the  main  work  of  reproduction  was 
that  of  the  wood- engraver,  mechanical  processes  serving  to 
copy  the  engraving  after  that  was  finished. 

Here  we  had  first  the  artist's  drawing  done  in  pencil  on 
the  smooth-finished  surface  of  a  block  of  boxwood,  sawed 
across  the  grain.  Then  the  engraver  took  it  in  hand. 
With  sharp,  steel  tools  of  different  shapes,  like  fine 
knives,  gravers,  gouges,  etc.,  he  cut  away  the  surface  of 
the  wood  between  the  artist's  pencil  lines  and  over  those 
areas  where  no  lines  were  drawn,  leaving  the  lines  them- 
selves raised  above  the  level  of  the  rest  of  the  block.  On 
the  part  of  the  block  representing  the  deep  shadows  under 
the  table,  for  example,  considerable  areas  were  left  almost 
intact,  the  engraver  merely  picking  out  a  few  very  small 
specks  from  the  surface  here  and  there,  in  order  that  it 
should  not  be  a  perfectly  plain,  unbroken  space.  On 
those  parts  of  the  block  representing  the  distant  wall  of 
the  room  with  the  open  shelves  of  dishes,  the  ridges  of 
wood  left  standing  to  correspond  to  the  artist's  lines 
were  intentionally  made  finer  and  somewhat  broken  ■ — 
not  firm  and  continuous. 

When  the  relief  portions  of  the  finished  block  were 
inked  and  paper  was  pressed  against  the  whole,  in  a  print- 
ing-press, the  lines  and  areas  standing  in  relief  left  im- 
pressions corresponding  to  their  shapes.  The  almost 
intact  spaces  under  the  table  left  broad  expanses  of  black. 
The  clear,  sharp  ridges  outlining  the  mother's  face  left 
strong,  distinct  lines.  The  fine,  broken  tracery  of  the 
hanging  shelves  left  faint,  hesitating  lines,  and  so  on. 
The  artist's  drawing  stood  transformed  into  a  print. 


THE   JOURNEY    FROM    ARTIST  TO    READER  239 

But  the  original  wooden  block  would  not  survive  long 
service  in  a  printing-press.  A  metal  duplicate  would 
stand  much  better  the  wear  and  tear  of  printing  ;  so  the 
publisher  of  the  picture-book  in  which  the  illustration  was 
to  appear  had  it  stereotyped.1  The  stereotype  plate  was 
made  by  pressing  the  face  of  the  wooden  block  into  a  soft 
mass  of  fine  clay,  plaster,  or  other  suitable  composition, 
forming  a  hollow  mould.  Molten  type  metal  was  poured 
into  the  resulting  mould,  and,  on  cooling,  this  gave  a  metal 
duplicate  of  the  wooden  original,  producing  exactly  the 
same  effects  in  printing. 


And  even  this  is  not  quite  the  whole  of  the  history  of 
our  picture  of  the  German  household. 

When  it  was  desired  to  reproduce  the  print  from  a 
foreign  picture-book,  neither  the  original  wooden  block 
nor  its  stereotype  duplicate  was  available.  The  repro- 
duction had  to  be  made  by  still  another  process. 

A  good  clear  print  of  the  picture  on  the  German  book 
page  was  treated  just  as  it  would  have  been  treated  if  it 
were  an  original  drawing  in  pencil  or  pen  and  ink.  (Such 
subjects  as  this  are  now  very  seldom  engraved  by  hand 
upon  wood,  the  newer  processes  being  at  once  quicker 
and  less  expensive.)  The  print  was  photographed  on  a 
glass  "negative,1'  the  second  or  "positive"  plate  being 
not  a  sheet  of  paper  as  in  ordinary  photography,  nor  yet  a 
copper  plate  as  in  half-tone  work,  but  a  sheet  of  zinc, 
coated  with  a  chemical  preparation  with  special  qualities 
of  sensitiveness  to  light.  The  parts  of  the  zinc  plate 
where  the  black  lines  of  the  picture  fell  were  "  fixed  "  or 

1  That  was  the  German  custom  of  thirty-five  years  ago.    Electrotyping 
would  now  be  done  in  such  a  ease,  instead  of  stereotyping.    See  page  247. 


240  HOAV   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

made  permanent,  then  the  block  was  exposed  to  the  action 
of  an  acid  which  dissolved  away  the  surface  between  the 
protected  lines,  leaving  those  lines  in  relief.  Very  large 
open  spaces,  requiring  a  long  time  for  the  corrosive  work 
of  the  acid,  were  dug  out  or  "  routed  out "  by  the  sharp, 
cutting  edge  of  a  machine  tool  made  for  the  purpose. 
The  degree  of  relief  in  this  zinc  plate  was  considerably 
greater  than  in  a  half-tone  block,  the  lines  standing  up 
conspicuously  from  the  rest  of  the  surface.  When 
finished  and  mounted  on  its  wooden  block,  the  zinc  plate 
was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  just  like  the  original 
wooden  block  produced  by  the  German  engraver  and  the 
metal-faced  block  produced  by  the  German  stereotyper. 

Mr.  Gibson's  pen-and-ink  drawings,  shown  on  pages  129 
and  219,  were  reproduced  by  this  zinc-plate  process  ;  so 
were  the  explanatory  diagrams  on  pages  137  and  149,  the 
photography  being  done  from  the  original  drawings. 


The  picture  on  page  241  has  had  a  varied  history.  It 
came  originally  from  the  hand  of  Rembrandt,1  the  famous 
Dutch  painter  and  etcher  ;  his  signature  appears  in  the 
lower  edge  of  the  picture,  at  the  end  of  the  sloping  bank. 
The  print  is  generally  known  as  Rembrandt's  Cottage 
with  White  Palings. 

This  landscape  has  here  the  effect  of  a  pen-and-ink 
drawing,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  Rembrandt  did  not 
draw  it  on  paper.  He  etched  it  on  a  sheet  of  copper. 
The  copper  was  coated  with  a  waxy  composition  adhering 
closely  to  the  surface,  and  the  drawing  was  done  with 
fine,  steel  tools,  cutting  through  the  waxy  coating  down 
to  the  surface  of  the  metal,  leaving  the  latter  exposed 
1  Rembrandt  van  Ryn,  Holland  (1607-1669). 


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242  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

wherever  a  streak  of  the  wax  had  been  removed  by  the 
etching  needle.  The  plate  was  then  given  a  bath  of 
nitric  acid.  Where  the  waxy  coating  still  adhered,  the 
acid  had  no  chance  to  affect  the  plate.  Where  it  had 
been  scratched  away,  the  exposed  streaks  of  copper  were 
attacked  by  the  acid,  each  line  being  eaten  into  a  groove, 
the  depth  of  the  groove  varying  according  to  the  length 
of  time  during  which  the  acid  was  allowed  to  work.  The 
width  of  the  grooved  lines  depended  partly  on  the  width 
of  the  space  originally  opened  to  the  acid,  and  partly 
(since,  after  it  had  once  begun  work,  the  acid  could  eat 
to  the  right  and  left  as  well  as  downwards)  on  the  length 
of  time  the  plate  remained  in  the  bath. 

After  remaining  long  enough  to  sufficiently  etch  the 
lines  intended  to  be  tine  and  shallow,  the  plate  was  taken 
out,  and  those  lines  temporarily  filled  with  a  pitchy  com- 
position which  would  prevent  the  acid  from  attacking 
them  further.  Then  the  plate  was  returned  to  the  bath, 
that  the  other  lines,  which  it  was  desired  to  deepen  and 
strengthen,  might  be  again  acted  upon  by  the  acid.  The 
removal  of  the  plate  to  fill  up  finished  lines,  and  then  its 
replacing  in  the  bath  for  still  deeper  etching,  probably 
took  place  several  times  before  the  work  was  completed. 
Then,  when  all  was  done,  the  pitchy  stuff  was  removed 
from  the  shallow  lines,  and  the  waxy  composition  from  the 
untouched  spaces,  and  the  plate  was  ready  for  printing. 

In  this  case,  the  appearance  of  the  plate  was  exactly  the 
reverse  of  that  of  a  wood-engraved  block  or  a  zinc  plate 
as  described  on  pages  238-240  ;  the  lines,  instead  of 
standing  out  in  relief  from  the  background,  were  sunk  into 
the  background.  In  order  to  print  from  the  plate,  its 
surface  was  inked,  the  ink  filling  all  the  grooves,  big  and 
little,  and  the  smooth  even  surface  of  the  plate  was  wiped 


THE  JOURNEY    FROM    ARTIST  TO    READER  243 

partly  or  entirely  clean,  leaving  ink  in  all  the  grooves. 
Then  the  close  pressure  of  a  sheet  of  paper  against  the 
plate  drew  the  ink  out  of  the  grooves  on  to  the  paper,  in 
lines  and  spaces  exactly  corresponding  to  the  lines  and 
spaces  etched  by  the  artist. 

The  comparatively  thin  plate  of  metal  from  which  an 
etching  is  printed  cannot  be  used  in  a  common  book 
printing-press  side  by  side  with  half-tone  blocks,  zinc 
plates,  and  printer's  type.  For  the  present  purpose, 
Rembrandt's  etching  had  to  be  translated,  as  it  were, 
into  zinc  plate,  just  as  the  wood-engraving  on  page  57 
was  translated  into  zinc  plate,  i.e.  by  photographing 
the  image  of  a  good  original  print  and  proceeding  from 
that  as  if  it  had  been  the  artist's  first  drawing.  The 
result,  as  printed  here,  does  not  give  precisely  the  effect 
of  the  real  etching.  There  are  many  line  points  of  differ- 
ence between  the  two,  but  one  of  the  chief  differences  is 
that  here,  on  page  241,  the  paper  is  merely  streaked  by 
coming  in  contact  with  an  inky  surface  of  metal,  whereas, 
in  a  true  etching,  the  paper  has  a  sort  of  ridge  of  ink 
deposited  on  it  from  the  hollow  in  the  plate  out  of 
which  the  ink  is  drawn  by  the  attraction  of  the  paper. 
The  two  kinds  of  printing  look  quite  different  to  an  ex- 
pert eye. 

The  portrait  of  A  Young  Man,  Musing,  on  page  91,  was 
reproduced  from  an  etching  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
Cottage  with  White  Palings. 

The  Study  of  Lions,  on  page  211,  was  also  reproduced 
from  an  etching,  but,  in  this  case,  the  etching  was  trans- 
lated into  a  half-tone  print.  The  etching  was  photo- 
graphed through  a  glass  screen  ruled  off  into  microscopic 
squares,  just  as  with  the  Sistine  Madonna,  whose  history 
we  have  already  traced  out  in  detail.     The  diagonal  lines 


244  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

iii  the  background  of  the  Lions  were  worked  up  by  hand 
after  the  practical  completion  of  the  block  as  a  whole. 


Flaxman's  Thetis  and  the  Nereids,  on  page  141,  was 
reproduced  from  a  steel  or  rather  cop>per-plate  engraving. 
The  first  engraving  was  done  on  a  plate  somewhat  similar 
to  that  used  in  etching ;  but  the  lines  were  cut  into  the 
metal  direct,  by  means  of  sharp  tools  in  the  engraver's 
hand,  not  eaten  out  by  acids.  This  particular  print  was 
made  by  a  process  similar  to  that  followed  with  Rem- 
brandt's etching  :  the  original  engraving  in  an  old  book 
was  photographed  and  used  to  make  a  zinc  plate,  all  the 
sunken  lines  being  thus  transformed  into  lines  standing 
out  in  high  relief  and  printable  like  any  book  type. 

Blake's  Death's  Door  (page  133)  was  also  reproduced 
from  a  steel  engraving  ;  but,  in  this  case,  the  reproduc- 
tion was  made  by  the  half-tone  rather  than  the  zinc-plate 
process. 

The  wood-engraving  reproduced  on  page  57  was  of  a  very 
simple  sort,  little  more  than  mere  cutting  to  an  outline. 
The  tail-piece  by  F.  E.  Clifford,  engraved  by  Caroline  A. 
Powell  (page  245),  shows  something  of  the  artistic  pos- 
sibilities of  wood-engraving.1 

It  is  now  the  almost  universal  custom  in  wood-engrav- 
ing to  have  the  artist's  drawing  or  painting  photographed 
on  the  finely  finished  surface  of  the  wood  — just  as  it 
might    be    photographed    on    to  a  sheet  of   paper,  —  the 

1  Mrs.  Gifforcl  is  a  well-known  New  York  artist,  the  wife  of  R.  Swain 
Gifford.  Miss  Powell  is  one  of  the  leading  engravers  of  the  country,  — 
the  tirst  woman  member  of  the  American  Association  of  Wood  Engravers. 
This  print  is  reproduced  from  the  Century  Magazine  with  the  publishers' 
permission. 


24G  HOW   TO    ENJOY   PICTURES 

original  remaining-  intact,  for  comparison  with  the  en- 
graver's block,  instead  of  being  destroyed  in  the  process 
of  engraving,  as  was  necessarily  the  case  when  the  artist 
drew  in  pencil  directly  on  the  block  itself.  In  this  case, 
the  artist's  drawing  was  made  with  brush  and  india  ink 
on  paper  and  then  photographed  on  the  surface  of  the 
engraver's  block,  the  engraver  having  the  original  draw- 
ing also  at  hand  for  comparison  of  effects  during  her  own 
work. 

Here,  as  we  see,  there  are  no  actual  outlines  at  all.  The 
beauty  and  effectiveness  of  the  engraving,  as  an  engrav- 
ing, consist  in  the  exquisite  perfection  of  its  minute  lines 
and  in  its  expression  of  different  kinds  of  color  and 
different  intensities  of  light,  all  through  skilful  uses  and 
combinations  of  lines  and  spaces  cut  or  ploughed  out  of 
the  wood  by  tools  in  the  engraver's  hand.  Notice  how 
the  engraver  cut  fine  depressions  out  of  a  large,  relief - 
space  (producing,  when  inked  and  pressed  against  paper, 
white  lines  on  a  black  background),  or  left  ridges  stand- 
ing in  relief  on  a  depressed  space  (producing  black  lines 
on  a  white" background),  according  to  the  effect  she  wished 
to  produce.  In  the  feathery  grasses  we  have  mostly 
white  lines  on  black  space.  In  the  moon's  disc  we  have 
broken  black  lines  (dots)  on  white  space.  In  the  clouds, 
and  in  the  sky  seen  through  the  cloud  rifts,  we  have 
varying  effects  of  light  and  dark,  according  to  the  varying 
proportions  of  relief  to  depression  on  the  block.  Notice 
how  delicately  these  gradations  were  managed.  And  see 
how  perfectly  the  textures  of  the  moths'  wings  and  bodies 
are  shown,  the  fluffy,  downy  body  of  the  nearest  moth, 
the  satin-like  surface  of  its  outspread  wings,  and  the  flut- 
tering, airy  fragility  of  the  wings  of  the  other  moths,  seen 
against  the  sky. 


THE  JOURNEY  FROM   ARTIST  TO   READER  217 

The  moonlight  sky  on  page  225  is  another  example  of 
wood  engraving.  The  good  effect  of  all  wood  engravings 
depends  very  much --as  in  the  case  of  half-tones-- on 
being  well  printed  upon  paper  of  the  proper  texture. 


The  print  which  we  have  here  was  not  made  direct  from 
the  engraver's  block,  but  from  a  metal  duplicate  known 
as  an  electrotype.  It  serves  practically  the  same  pur- 
pose as  a  stereotype  (see  page  239),  but  is  better  adapted 
to  delicate  detail,  and  so  oftener  used  in  fine  illustrative 
work  than  the  quick,  cheap  stereotype.  The  engraved 
face  of  the  original  wooden  block  was  dusted  with  finely 
powdered  graphite  or  "  black  lead  "  and  pressed  into  a 
sheet  of  prepared  wax  so  as  to  leave  an  exact  impression  of 
every  relief  and  depression.  The  resulting  mould  next 
had  its  inner  surface  washed  with  a  solution  of  iron  filings 
in  blue  vitriol  to  make  it  a  good  conductor  of  electricity, 
then  it  was  immersed  in  a  bath  containing  sulphate  of 
copper.  This  chemical  solution  was  broken  up  by  send- 
ing through  the  bath  an  electric  current  produced  by  the 
action  of  a  dynamo  or  electrical  machine,  the  effect  being 
that  a  thin  coating  of  copper  was  deposited  all  over  the 
inner  surface  of  the  mould,  the  resulting  shell  of  copper 
of  course  exactly  reproducing  the  shapes  of  the  surface 
of  the  original  wooden  block  used  to  make  the  mould  in 
the  first  place.  The  copper  shell  was  then  removed,  its 
back  coated  with  a  film  of  tin-foil,  and  then  all  its  hollows 
filled  in  with  molten  type  metal.  When  cool,  this  pro- 
duced a  strong  solid  plate  of  metal.  The  whole  was  then 
mounted  on  a  wooden  block  to  bring  it  to  the  height  of 
printer's   type.     The  resulting  block  was  practically  an 


248  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

exact  duplicate  of  the  original  wooden  block,  producing 
the  same  effects  in  printing. 


Two  general  classes  of  printing  plates  have  been  alluded 
to  thus  far,  —  those  where  the  lines  of  a  drawing  are  sunk 
into  the  surface  of  the  plate  (etching  and  steel  or  copper- 
plate engraving),  and  those  where  the  lines  stand  up  in 
relief  (wood-engraving,  half-tone,  and  zinc  plates).  There 
is  still  another  method  of  picture  printing  where  the  sur- 
face of  the  plate  has  no  reliefs  and  no  depressions,  but  is 
perfectly  smooth,  i.e.  in  lithography. 

The  portrait  of  Lincoln,  by  De  Camp J  (page  249),  was 
printed  from  a  half-tone  block,  but  the  half-tone  was  made 
from  a  lithograph  print.  And  this  is  the  story  of  the 
lithograph  :  — ■ 

The  artist  made  his  drawing,  not  on  paper,  but  on  the 
fine-grained  surface  of  a  slab  of  lithographic  stone.  (This 
is  a  certain  variety  of  limestone,  usually  imported  from 
quarries  in  Bavaria.)  The  black  crayon  used  in  making 
the  drawing  was  also  of  a  special  kind,  containing  fatty 
substances.  Variations  in  the  lightness  or  darkness  of 
the  lines  were  made  just  as  in  drawing  with  a  soft  pencil 
on  an}^  rough-surfaced  paper  ;  where  the  crayon  rubbed 
lightly  over  the  grained,  i.e.  uneven  surface,  its  substance 
adhered  to  the  fine  elevations,  leaving  tiny  open  spaces  be- 
tween, untouched,  producing  a  mark  considerably  diluted 
in  color,  that  is  to  say,  light  gray.  Firmer  pressure  in 
drawing  rubbed  more  or  less  of  the  crayon  substance  into 
the  grain  of  the  stone,  producing  darker  lines.  Where 
the  artist  wanted  the  very  strongest  darks,  he  drew  with 
his  heaviest  strokes,  completely  filling  in  the  grain  of  the 
stone  so  that  his  lines  had  no  breaks  or  open  spaces  at  all. 
1  Joseph  De  Camp,  an  American  artist  of  to-day. 


PORTRAIT   OF   LINCOLN.  —  De  Cami- 


250  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

After  the  completion  of  the  drawing,  the  stone  was 
given  a  bath  of  acidulated  gum  arabic  solution.  This 
bath  chemically  affected  at  the  same  time,  though  in 
different  ways,  both  the  crayon  lines  of  the  artist's 
drawing  and  the  blank  portions  of  the  stone.  The  effect 
upon  the  crayon  lines  was  to  fix  them  more  permanently 
on  the  stone,  and  to  give  them  a  great  attraction  for  fatty 
substances,  like  printer's  ink.  The  effect  on  the  blank 
spaces  of  the  stone  (where  no  lines  had  been  drawn)  was, 
on  the  contrary,  to  make  them  repel  all  fatty  substances. 
In  this  condition  the  stone  plate  became  ready  for  print- 
ing. Its  surface  was,  as  has  already  been  said,  plane  and 
approximately  smooth,  the  lines  of  the  drawing  being 
neither  depressed  nor  raised,  but  differing  from  the  rest 
of  the  surface  simply  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  they  had  a 
strong  affinity  for  fatty  substances,  like  printer's  ink,  while 
the  rest  of  the  plate  had  not. 

To  take  an  impression  from  this  plate  it  was  moistened 
and  then  gone  over  with  a  roller  covered  with  black 
printer's  ink.  The  ink  from  this  roller  adhered  to  the 
crayon-covered  parts  of  the  stone,  but  stuck  nowhere  else  ; 
the  rest  of  the  stone  refused  the  ink  and  remained  clean. 

Then  a  sheet  of  paper  was  laid  on  the  face  of  the  stone 
and  the  whole  subjected  to  even  pressure  in  a  printing- 
press.  The  result  was  that  the  ink  was  transferred  from 
the  lines  on  the  stone  to  the  surface  of  the  paper,  produc- 
ing lines  exactly  like  those  drawn  by  the  artist.  Where 
the  artist's  line  had  been  light,  i.e.  broken,  the  grain  of 
the  stone  giving  microscopic  spaces  of  light  between  the 
touches  of  crayon,  the  ink  had  been  correspondingly 
attracted  and  then  transferred,  producing  open,  grayish 
lines  in  the  print,  e.g.  on  the  cheeks,  the  side  of  the  nose, 
the   shoulder  of    the    coat,  etc.       Where    the    artist  had 


THE  JOUENEY    FEOM    ARTIST  TO   EEADEli  '2~>l 

used  his  crayon  more  heavily,  partly  filling  up  the  grain 
of  the  stone  as  he  drew,  and  producing  darker  strokes, 
there  the  surface  of  the  stone  had  attracted  still  more 
ink,  producing,  in  the  course  of  printing,  correspond- 
ingly darker  lines  on  the  paper.  (Beard,  shadowed  side 
of  throat,  etc.)  Where  the  artist,  in  working  for  his 
darkest  effects,  had  rubbed  the  grain  of  the  stone  quite 
full  of  crayon  stuff,  the  ink  attached  itself  in  practically 
unbroken  masses ;  and,  under  pressure  in  the  printing- 
press,  these  places  came  out  sharp  and  black,  with  the 
same  "  accent "  that  the  artist  put  into  the  original  draw- 
ing. (Pupils  of  eyes,  parts  of  hair  and  necktie.)  The 
result,  as  a  whole,  was  consequently  an  exact  facsimile  of 
the  artist's  own  work,  with  this  single  difference,  that  the 
right  and  left  of  the  picture  were  reversed  in  printing, 
just  as  the  right  and  left  of  a  man's  face  are  reversed  when 
he  confronts  a  mirror.1 

Woodbury's  Old  Street  in  Siena  (page  39)  was  also 
reproduced  by  lithography,  but  in  this  case  the  artist 
made  his  sketch  on  ordinary  drawing  paper  with  ordinary 
pencils.  The  sketch  was  afterwards  transferred  to  stone 
at  the  lithographer's,  a  more  complicated  process  being 
followed  in  this  instance  than  with  De  Camp's  Lincoln. 

But  in  neither  case  could  the  lithographic  or  stone  print- 
ing be  done  in  a  common  printing-press  side  by  side  with 
printer's  types  and  relief  blocks.  In  order  to  make  it  pos- 
sible to  print  the  Siena  sketch  and  the  Lincoln  portrait  on 
the  same  press,  and  at  the  same  time  with  the  other  illus- 
trations of  our  book,  half-tone  plates  were  made  from  the 

1  Artists  drawing  on  stone  for  lithographic  reproduction  make  allowance 
for  this  mirror-like  reversal  when  at  work  on  the  stone.  Mr.  De  Camp, 
for  example,  drew  his  portrait  of  Lincoln  with  the  face  turning  towards 
the  Jpft. 


252  HOW   TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

lithographic  prints,  following  essentially  the  same  steps 
that  have  already  been  described  in  the  history  of  our 
print  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  (page  169)  ;  only,  in  the 
case  of  the  Siena  sketch,  the  portions  of  the  plate  repre- 
senting the  very  lightest  parts  of  the  picture  were  after- 
wards entirely  cut  away  with  hand  or  machine  tools,  in 
order  to  keep  those  parts  of  the  plate  from  carrying  any 
ink  at  all  to  the  paper  in  printing,  i.e.  in  order  to  leave 
those  parts  of  the  picture  entirely  white. 


"We  find,  on  the  whole,  that  all  the  leading  modern 
processes  of  picture  reproduction  have  been  put  at  our 
service  to  bring  even  these  few  works  of  a  few  represen- 
tative artists  into  our  very  hands.  Interest  in  these 
processes  is,  of  course,  something  quite  distinct  from  our 
enjoyment  of  the  pictures  for  their  own  sake  ;  but,  to 
many  of  us,  a  little  realization  of  the  clear-headed  thought 
and  marvellous  skill  which  went  into  the  processes  inter- 
mediate between  the  artist  and  ourselves  makes  the  study 
of  pictures  all  the  more  attractive  and  pleasurable.  It  is 
true  the  artist  himself  is  in  each  case  the  one  we  have 
most  to  thank.  Still,  if  the  world  contained  only  the  one 
picture  which  came  direct  from  the  artist's  hand,  most  of 
us  could  never  know  anything  of  it  save  through  unsat- 
isfactory descriptions.  When  the  photographer,  the  en- 
graver and  the  electrotyper,  the  half-tone  maker  and  the 
printer  all  fall  to  and  do  their  best  to  bring  their  artist's 
thought  home  to  us,  we  have  a  very  significant  instance 
of  the  cooperation  of  the  sciences  in  the  service  of  the 
arts.  Take,  for  instance,  Botticelli's  Madonna  of  the 
Louvre  (page  147).  In  the  days  when  the  painter  lived 
and  worked  in  Florence,  modern  science  was  hardly  born. 


THE  JOURNEY    FROM   ARTIST   TO    READER  253 

The  very  first  printing  of  hooks  on  a  hand-press  from 
clumsy  wooden  types  was  a  great  event  during  his  life- 
time ;  most  of  the  books  in  existence  were  manuscripts, 
patiently  copied  by  scholars  and  clerks  in  the  monas- 
teries. Photography  had  not  then  been  dreamed  of. 
Stories  of  the  existence  of  land  west  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  were  brought  back  before  he  died  by  the  sailors 
under  Columbus  and  Vespucci  ;  but  the  land  was  far,  far 
off,  peopled  by  dancing  savages,  —  who  knows  ?  perhaps 
by  dragons  and  devils,  —  reached  only  by  long,  long  sail- 
ing under  mysterious  skies.  Not  a  steamship  then  in  all 
the  world's  oceans,  not  a  railroad  train  in  all  the  world's 
continents,  not  a  telegraph  line  nor  a  factory  with  steam 
or  electric  power  under  the  sun.  A  bewildering  dream, 
indeed,  it  would  have  seemed  to  our  old-time  Florentine, 
if  he  could  have  foreseen  the  way  in  which  the  picture  he 
painted  with  such  loving  enthusiasm  would  reach  our 
hands  to-day  —  dwellers  in  the  midst  of  a  marvellous  new 
civilization,  with  heat  and  light  and  electricity  for  ser- 
vants, bringing  us  our  share  of  the  legacy  he  left  behind 
him  for  his  fellow-men. 


CHAPTER   XII 

PICTURES   IN   THE    SCHOOL-ROOM 

"ONJOYMENT  is  the  first  and  final  purpose  of  pictures 
in  the  school-room.  But  between  the  simple,  unques- 
tioning delight  of  early  childhood  and  the  thoughtful, 
intelligent  appreciation  which  develops  with  the  growing 
years,  there  is  as  wide  a  difference  as  between  the  naive 
drawings  of  little  children  and  the  later  purposeful  ex- 
pression which  follows  conscious  study.  The  early  years 
are  precious,  and  we  do  well  if  we  make  the  most  of  them 
Avhile  they  last;  for,  as  naturally  as  the  child  grows  in 
body,  so  he  grows  in  spirit,  out  of  the  childish  attitude  of 
mind  into  the  "  long,  long  thoughts  "  and  vague  question- 
ings of  youth. 

School  children  become  acquainted  with  pictures 
through  seeing  them  on  the  school-room  walls,  —  a  more 
or  less  permanent  feature  of  their  daily  environment,  — 
and  also  through  seeing  small  photographs,  prints,  and 
book  illustrations.  The  movement  for  placing  good  art 
examples  on  the  walls  of  our  public  schools  is  rapidly 
growing.  In  many  places,  however,  much  preparatory 
thought  and  work  have  to  be  given  to  the  matter,  to 
insure  the  placing  of  good  pictures  before  the  children 
in  such  a  way  as  to  be  worthy  both  of  the  art  examples 
themselves,  and  of  the  educational  purpose  which  they 
are  to  serve. 

254 


PICTURES   IN   THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  255 

In  any  plan  of  school-room  decoration,  its  purpose  and 
the  use  of  the  room  should  be  borne  in  mind.  The 
school-room  is  first  of  all  a  study,  a  workroom,  not  a 
parlor.  The  very  construction  of  the  room,  its  propor- 
tions, divisions  of  spaces  by  doors,  windows,  and  heating 
and  ventilating  apparatus,  should  be  determined  by  its 
use ;  but  these  proportions  and  spacings  should  be  as 
pleasing  as  may  be  while  conforming  to  the  requirements 
of  a  school-room.  Architects  willingly  cooperate  with  art 
teachers  or  others  interested  in  these  matters,  and.  so  far 
as  practicable,  carry  out  offered  suggestions. 

No  invariable  rules  can  be  laid  down  concerning  color 
schemes  for  a  school-room,  but  some  suggestions  may  be  of 
value.1  The  color  note  of  a  room  is  usually  determined 
by  its  Avoodwork,  especially  as  the  use  of  natural  woods 
is  superseding  that  of  painted  wood.  No  one  color  or 
tone  is  suited  to  an  entire  building,  where  light  comes  by 
turns  from  various  points  of  the  compass.  With  natural 
pine  or  oak  woodwork,  a  creamy  tone  on  the  wall  surface 
(technically,  a  tint  of  brown  or  orange  gray)  is  pleasant 
for  a  bleak  northern  room  which  seldom  has  a  ray  of 
direct  sunshine,  and  to  some  extent  compensates  the 
children  for  their  loss  of  the  sun.  On  the  south  side, 
where  the  sunlight  comes  streaming  in,  a  very  warm 
tone  2  on  the  walls  might  seem  disagreeable  ;  here  a  cool, 
gray-green  tint3  is  grateful.  We  must  remember,  how- 
ever, that  too  cool  a  tone,  i.e.   one  containing  too  great 

1  Art  for  the  Eye,  by  Ross  Turner  (Boston,  1898,  The  Prang  Educa- 
tional Company),  is  valuable  for  reference  in  this  connection. 

2  Colors  tending  toward  orange  are  called  warm  ;  those  tending  toward 
blue  are  called  cold.  Warm  colors  are  those  that  partake  of  the  color 
nature  of  sunshine  or  of  fire. 

3  Tint  is  used  here  as  meaning  a  light  tone,  in  distinction  from  shade, 
which  is  a  dark  tone. 


256  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

a  proportion  of  blue  to  the  yellow,  would  by  contrast 
intensify  the  warmth  of  the  woodwork. 

It  is  a  matter  of  relationships  ;  all  should  be  considered 
together,  —  woodwork,  blackboard  (which  let  us  hope  is 
not  black  at  all,  but  the  soft  gray  of  natural  slate  or  a 
dark  green-gray  mixture),  wall  surface,  and  window 
shades.  The  latter  should  be  selected  with  reference 
to  their  color  at  the  window,  when  light  shines  through 
them,  as  well  as  taking  into  account  their  local  color 
when  unaffected  by  light. 

In  an  old-fashioned  building,  where  the  woodwork  is 
nearly  black  with  age,  a  warm,  softly  pinkish  tint  on  the 
walls  is  cheerful,  and  enlivens  the  deep  tones  of  the  wood. 
Where  woodwork  is  painted,  it  is  well  to  choose  the  same 
color  for  both  wood  and  wall  —  a  warm  or  cold  gray, 
according  to  the  lighting  of  the  room,  the  woodwork 
being  enough  deeper  in  tone  to  give  a  pleasant  accent, 
while  window  shades,  carrying  the  same  color  if  possible, 
add  the  necessary  depth  of  color.  Ventilators  and  heat- 
ing ajjparatus,  when  forming  a  part  of  the  wall  space, 
should  be  colored  as  such  ;  if  within  the  dark  black- 
board area,  the  usual  japanned  finish  is  not  especially 
objectionable,  but  it  should  not  be  tolerated  on  a  light 
wall.  It  is  possible  to  have  any  color  desired  for  the 
finish  of  these  register  and  ventilator  surfaces,  when  a 
room  is  being  painted. 


S 


PICTURES   IN  THE    SCHOOL-ROOM  257 

When  we  consider  the  framing  and  hanging  of  pictures, 
again  it  is  a  question  of  relationship,  and  of  purpose,  or 
use.  Compared  with  the  number  and  arrangement  of 
pictures  in  our  own  particular  sanctum  at  home,  or  with 
the  principal's  office  at  school,  there  are  certain  differ- 
ences to  be  borne  in  mind.  Our  own  pictures  represent 
a  gradual  acquisition,  one  or  two  at  a  time,  covering 
perhaps  a  space  of  many  years,  and  implying  a  corre- 
spondingly gradual  assimilation  of  their  charms.  Besides, 
the  home  is  supposed  to  be  a  permanent  abiding-place, 
not  the  scene  of  an  annual  or  semi-annual  game  of 
"  Stage-coach,"  in  Avhich  all  players  change  to  another 
room,  scarcely  regaining  their  mental  equilibrium  before 
still  another  change  is  called  for.  Remembering  this 
matter  of  school  promotions  and  considering  the  imma- 
turity of  the  child  mind,  it  may  be  better  to  have  but 
few  pictures  in  any  one  class-room.  The  hallways  and 
the  principal's  office,  being  familiar  ground  for  several 
consecutive  years,  might  be  made  richer  storehouses 
without  danger  of  overloading  and  distracting  children's 
minds  ;  but  in  the  special  class-room,  where  the  child 
does  most  of  his  work,  a  single  picture,  carefully  chosen 
and  judiciously  hung,  may  exert  a  deeper  and  more 
abiding  influence  than  half  a  score  of  pictures  selected 
with  less  care,  and  scattered  about  the  room,  calling  the 
attention  hither  and  yon,  until  it  settles  upon  nothing 
in  particular. 

If  we  agree  that  it  is  better  to  hang  but  few  pictures 
at  a  time  in  a  class-room,  we  find  that  the  area  of  wall 
space  is  great  in  proportion  to  the  picture  area.  Sup- 
pose we  have  selected  a  photograph  of  some  fine  build- 
ing, the  Parthenon,  St.  Mark's,  perhaps  the  Capitol  at 
Washington.      Were  this  to  be  hung  in  the  principal's 


258  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

office,1  where  wall  space  is  restricted  and  the  view  at  close 
range,  it  might  be  desirable  and  pleasing  to  enclose  it 
in  a  broad  moulding,  placed  directly  against  the  edge 
of  the  picture.  But  if  the  picture  is  to  hang  in  the  wide 
area  in  the  front  of  a  class-room,  to  be  viewed  from  vari- 
ous points  in  the  room,  a  moderately  wide  margin  or  mat 
between  picture  and  frame  usually  increases  its  effective- 
ness, and  brings  it  more  into  harmony  with  its  surround- 
ings. In  short,  the  same  rules  which  apply  to  dress 
should  govern  the  selection  of  frames  for  pictures.  The 
frame  should  set  off  the  picture,  as  the  dress  sets  off  the 
wearer.  Showy,  elaborate  frames  are  as  much  out  of 
place  in  a  school-room  as  rich  clothing  and  profuse 
jewellery. 

In  surface,  a  picture  frame  for  school  service  should 
be  smooth  and  free  from  grooves  and  projections  which 
invite  the  dust.  In  choice  of  color,  the  woodwork  of 
the  school-room  and  the  general  tone  of  the  wall  as  well 
as  the  picture  itself  enter  into  the  practical  problem. 
For  example,  a  heavy,  dark  frame  would  be  manifestly 
discordant  in  a  school-room  with  very  light  woodwork 
and  white  walls.     In  general  terms  it  may  be  considered 

1  The  art  interest  of  a  school  building  should  centre  in  the  principal's 
office.  Here  is  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  individual  taste  and  for 
establishing  high  standards.  Here  may  be  placed  pictures  a  little  beyond 
the  comprehension  of  the  children  of  the  school,  showing  that  there  are 
art  treasures  yet  unknown  and  beckoning  them  on,  e.g.  such  a  series  as 
Alexander's  Evolution  of  the  Book,  Blashfield's  Progress  of  Civilization, 
Maynard's  Discoverers,  or  some  other  of  the  beautiful  decorations  of  the 
Congressional  Library  at  Washington. 

For  the  teachers'  rest-room  it  may  seem  well  to  adopt  the  suggestions 
of  the  Japanese  and  choose  just  one  beautiful  thing  on  which  the  eye  may 
repose  and  be  satisfied, — perhaps  one  of  Corot's  forest  scenes  or  one  of 
Turner's  sea-views.  Much  as  a  teacher  may  love  her  work,  there  come 
times  when  she  seeks  refuge  from  it;  and  what  but  nature  can  so  renew 
a  faint  spirit  ? 


PICTURES    IN   THE    SCHOOL-ROOM  259 

a  safe  custom   to   make   the   frame  correspond  with   the 

middle  tone  of  a  picture,  that  is,  to  have  the  color  of  the 
frame  about  midway,  as  to  lightness  or  darkness,  between 
the  highest  lights  and  the  deepest  shades  of  a  picture, 
each  appearing  enhanced  in  value  by  the  more  neutral 
average  of  the  frame.  Sometimes  a  slightly  suggestive 
color  effect  is  pleasant,  as  a  green-gray  frame  for  a  water 
view,  a  warm  brownish  gray  on  a  picture  representing 
freshly  overturned  earth,  or  a  silver  gray  for  a  delicate 
moonlight  scene  ;  but  such  choice  must  depend  also  in 
part  upon  the  actual  color  of  the  photograph  or  other 
print.  Photographs  made  from  the  same  negative  often 
differ  greatly  in  the  matter  of  warmth  or  coolness  of 
effect,  owing  to  differences  in  printing  and  toning.  In 
the  main,  plain  inexpensive  ash,  birch,  and  oak  frames 
are  safe,  durable,  and  pleasant  to  live  with,  like  good, 
reliable,  every-day  friends. 

Modern  school-rooms  are  usually  supplied  with  picture 
mouldings  which,  for  the  convenience  of  the  teachers, 
should  be  placed  as  low  as  a  pleasant  spacing  of  the  wall 
area  will  permit.  In  hanging  pictures  in  a  school-room 
it  is  the  child's  point  of  view  which  should  be  first  con- 
sidered. The  very  choicest  picture  naturally  belongs  in 
the  front  of  the  room  where  all  may  enjoy  it,  hung  low 
enough  to  be  easily  seen  from  every  seat.  hi  some 
school-rooms  the  height  of  the  Avindow  sills  from  the 
floor  gives  cozy  little  spaces  which  may  well  be  utilized 
for  the  placing  of  smaller  pictures,  for  close,  intimate 
companionship  and  study. 


S 


260  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Several  considerations  influence  the  choice  of  pictures 
for  the  school-room.1  First  and  foremost  is  that  of  art 
culture  ;  in  choosing  pictures  we  must  think  of  their  en- 
during, artistic  qualitiest  Only  the  best  should  be  given 
a  lasting  place  on  the  walls.  These  are  the  things  to 
live  with  and  to  carry  permanently  in  heart  and  mind. 
Hut  there  are  also  pictures  of  transient  interest,  belong- 
ing to  some  particular  age  or  experience,  which  worthily 
minister  to  temporary  needs  or  desires,  —  pictures  good 
in  their  own  lesser  fashion,  but  not  of  enduring  value, 
pictures  which  we  outgrow  as  we  pass  from  childhood 
and  youth  to  maturity.  These  are  like  the  acquaintances 
whom  we  enjoy  for  the  time  and  who  contribute  to  the 
largeness  of  our  conception  of  life,  but  they  are  not  quite 
like  the  friends  who  become  a  necessary  part  of  our  very 
lives.  And,  lastly,  there  are  pictures  which  relate 
directly  to  details  of  school  life  and  work,  to  nature 
study  in  plant  and  animal  life,  to  the  progress  of  the 
seasons,  to  literature,  history,  and  geography.  These 
may  indeed  be  of  intrinsic  artistic  worth,  and  may 
deserve  a  place  on  the  Avails  at  least  for  a  time ;  but, 
if  they  possess  only  slight  artistic  value,  they  would 
better  form  part  of  a  portfolio  collection,  to  be  brought 
out  when  needed  for  special  reference,  like  a  dictionary 
or  other  useful  reference  book,  and  then  put  away.2 


1  A  list  of  pictures  and  casts  for  public  school  class-rooms  of  various 
grades  was  recently  prepared  by  Stella  Skinner  and  M.  Rachel  Webster, 
of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  and  published  in  New  Haven. 

2  Many  teachers  make  collections  of  pictures  illustrative  of  points 
treated  in  school  lessons  on  geography,  history,  natural  science,  and  the 
like,  and  keep  these  in  portfolios  or  large  envelopes,  assorted  as  to  subject 
so  that  any  desired  print  may  be  easily  found  when  needed.  Others 
prefer  to  mount  such  pictures  in  scrap-books  to  save  them  from  the 
wear  and  tear  of  much  direct  handling.     Where  the  scrap-book  plan  is 


PICTURES   IN   THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  261 

To  the  little  child  who  comes,  sensitive  and  shy,  from 
the  home  circle  into  the  larger  community  of  the  school- 
room, what  more  gracious  welcome  could  await  him  than 
the  gentle,  loving  presence  of  one  of  the  Madonnas,  as- 
suring him,  as  it  does,  of  love  and  care  and  sympathy  in 
his  school  home,  not  less  than  in  the  familiar  family  life  ? 
For  surely  no  teacher  under  that  benign  influence  can  be 
impatient  or  harsh  with  the  little  ones  who  trust  her  so 
confidingly.  They  are  not  cherubs,  these  little  live  and 
six  year  olds,  and  when  the  shyness  and  strangeness  wear 
away,  some  of  them  prove  veritable  imps  of  mischief, 
wriggling  and  squirming  and  tormenting  their  hapless 
neighbors.  It  is  true  these  vices  are  usually  but  per- 
verted virtues  ;  wriggling  itself  may  be  only  excess  of 
vitality  or  nervous  energy,  awaiting  guidance  into  right 
avenues  of  expression  ;  but  unless  the  teacher  is  wise 
and  patient,  her  heart  must  sometimes  fail  as  she  sees  her 
favorite  theories  vanish  into  the  thin,  clear  air  of  experi- 

followed,  it  is  better  to  attach  the  photographs  or  other  prints  with  only  a 
slight  touch  of  library  paste  or  mucilage  at  the  corners,  not  pasting  over 
the  whole  surface ;  better  still,  if  paste  is  applied  only  along  that  edge  of 
the  picture  which  is  to  come  next  to  the  binding  of  the  scrap-book,  the 
rest  of  the  picture  may  be  turned  like  an  in-set  leaf  of  the  book  itself, 
and  be  almost  absolutely  secure  from  wrinkling  and  rumpling. 

A  single  large  sheet  of  heavy  cardboard,  to  which  pictures  may  be 
temporarily  attached  with  pins  or  thumb-tacks,  is  often  used  by  teachers 
like  a  bulletin  board,  giving  special  information  or  suggestions  bearing  on 
the  lessons  for  any  given  day.  Still  another  plan  is  to  have  wall  charts 
upon  which  pictures  may  be  pasted.  The  millboard  used  by  bookbind- 
ers has  been  found  satisfactory,  with  the  upper  edge  of  the  sheet  eye- 
letted  and  strung  with  gray  tape  for  hanging. 

Illustrated  articles  may  often  be  cut  entire  from  old  magazines  and 
fastened  into  manila  covers  for  use  in  the  school  reference  library  ;  or 
illustrations  may  be  mounted  on  small  cards  and  kept  in  envelopes  or 
boxes  to  be  passed  around  the  class  for  individual  study.  All  these 
various  plans  have  been  found  desirable  by  workers  under  differing 
conditions. 


262  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

ence,  and  she  too  will  be  helped  and  comforted  by  the 
calm,  sweet,  mother  presence  beside  her. 

And  what  of  the  street  urchin  whose  only  idea  of  home 
is  a  place  for  eating  and  sleeping,  and  with  whom  the 
thought  of  "  mother  "  is  too  often  associated  with  harsh 
tones  and  impatient  blows?  What  can  a  picture  of  the 
Madonna  mean  to  him?  May  it  not  teach  him  that, 
after  all,  the  world  is  full  of  love ;  that  he  himself, 
neglected  little  waif  though  he  seem,  is  entitled  to  his 
share  of  it?  Fortunate  indeed  will  he  be  if,  in  his 
own  teacher,  he  finds  the  realization  of  this  motherly 
ideal. 

After  these  youngest  children  have  lived  with  the 
Madonna  picture  for  some  weeks  or  months,  and  it  has 
had  time  to  become  a  part  of  their  very  life,  they  like  to 
talk  about  it  (indeed,  they  may  wish  to  talk  about  it  from 
the  first,  even  before  the}*  have  anything  to  say),  and 
to  tell  the  story  they  find  in  it,  which  is  always  "  The 
mother  loves  the  baby."  Then  they  want  to  tell  about 
the  baby  at  home,  and  of  the  love  which  surrounds  it. 
Skilful  questioning  will  lead  the  children  to  look  into 
the  picture  again  and  again  for  deeper  meaning.  How 
do  they  know  that  the  mother  loves  the  baby?  How 
does  the  baby  show  that  it  loves  its  mother  ?  Where  are 
they?  Do  you  think  it  is  a  cold  or  a  warm  country 
where  they  live  ?  Why  ?  The  children  will  have  ques- 
tions to  ask,  —  questions  too  deep  and  serious,  maybe, 
for  answer,  for  who  has  the  skill  to  tell  the  Christ  story 
to  a  little  child?  The  Madonna  idea  embodies  for  us  all 
much  more  than  one  mother  and  one  child.  It  stands 
as  the  type  of  motherhood,  and  of  the  love  which  sur- 
rounds all  childhood.  "  Each  new  child's  a  new  Mes- 
siah," a   message  and  a  hope  to  world-weary  men,  and 


PICTURES    IN    THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  263 

the  very  highest  purpose  of  education  is  to  nourish  this 
inborn,  divine  spirit,  not  to  quench  it. 

Children  enjoy  bringing  in  pictures  of  mothers  with 
their  babies  for  a  little  loan  exhibit,  —temporary,  because 
many  of  their  selections  may  be  poor.  Then,  if  this  inter- 
est has  had  timely  association  with  the  Christmas  season, 
the  teacher  may  like  to  give  each  child  one  of  the  inex- 
pensive prints  now  obtainable,  to  carry  into  the  home  cir- 
cle with  its  beautiful  message  of  peace  on  earth,  good  will 
to  men,  where  it  may  comfort  and  cheer  a  weary  mother. 

Children  a  little  older  may  become  interested  in  know- 
ing something  about  the  man  who  made  the  picture,  espe- 
cially if  Raphael  has  been  chosen  ;  his  boyish  portrait  will 
delight  them.  If  they  have  come  to  know  one  Madonna 
well,  others  by  the  same  artist  and  by  other  artists  will 
interest  them,  just  as  we  enjoy  several  books  by  one 
author,  or  several  photographs  of  a  dear  friend.  Care 
should  be  taken,  however,  to  avoid  over-emphasis  on  this 
biographical  aspect  of  picture  study.  In  a  few  cases, 
where  an  artist's  life  history  shines  out  through  his  work 
in  a  way  to  be  attractive  to  the  childish  imagination,- — ■ 
e.g.  in  studying  some  of  Millet's  peasant  pictures,  —  bits 
of  personal  history  or  anecdote  may  help  even  very  little 
people  to  feel  the  spirit  of  a  special  picture  ;  but,  as 
a  rule,  it  is  safer  to  postpone  artist  biographies  to  the 
higher  grades  of  school,  perhaps,  to  confine  them,  for  the 
most  part,  to  written  exercises. 

Farther  on  in  school  life,  as  boys  and  girls  come  to 
know  more  of  art  and  of  history,  it  will  interest  them  to 
learn  that  the  Madonna  has  been  a  favorite  theme  for 
artists  and  poets  for  many  centuries  (appealing  as  it 
does  both  to  the  spiritual  nature  and  the  human  emo- 
tions), and  they  can  then  classify  and  study  such  pict- 


2(34  HOW   TO   ENJOY    PICTURES 

ures  by  schools,  —  the  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  German. 
Dutch,  English,  and  American  interpretations,  noting  re- 
semblances and  differences.  With  older  pupils,  it  is  Avell 
to  study  the  artist's  manner  of  work  as  well  as  his  subject, 
to  look  for  the  beauty  of  his  composition  as  a  composition, 
and  to  notice  his  ways  of  treating  details  to  make  them 
contribute  to  the  beauty  and  impressiveness  of  the  whole. 
(See  the  notes  on  certain  Madonnas  of  Botticelli,  Murillo, 
Holbein,  Van  Dyck,  and  Raphael,  Chapter  IX.)  This 
closer  study  would  of  course  be  out  of  place  with  little 
children. 

Interest  thus  aroused  may  grow  on  and  on  beyond  the 
school  life,  leading  into  delightful  paths  of  after-school 
study.  The  leisure  of  a  series  of  winters  might  be  well 
given  to  the  study  and  enjoyment  of  this  one  subject^ 
beginning  with  the  early  Italian  conceptions  which  mark 
the  dawn  of  painting  as  an  art  in  itself,  —  its  development 
in  Italy,  and  its  relation  to  the  religion  and  the  home  life 
of  the  people,  comparing  the  interpretations  of  one  artist 
with  another  ;  reading  between  the  lines  much  of  the  life 
and  environment  of  the  people.  Then,  moving  on  from 
one  nationality  to  another,  what  an  insight  may  be  gained 
into  the  lives  and  thoughts  of  the  people  !  Finally,  how 
interesting  would  be  a  comparison  of  contemporary  inter- 
pretations of  the  one  subject  by  the  different  nationalities, 
noting  how  the  life  of  the  period,  its  religious  conceptions, 
and  physical  types  influence  the  artist  !  All  this  detailed 
and  mature  study  is,  of  course,  beyond  the  province  of 
the  school-room,  but  not  beyond  the  resources  of  a  teacher 
whose  tastes  lead  her  in  such  directions,  and  who  lias 
access  to  a  good  library. 

A  comparison  of  subjects  of  art  expression  by  different 
nations  would  be  of  interest  with  mature  pupils,  and  valu- 


PICTURES   IN   THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  ^l~> 

able  in  relation  to  historic  study.  The  preponderance  of 
religious  themes  with  t lie  Italians,  conquest  and  national 
greatness  with  the  French  (up  to  the  present  century), 
civic  and  domestic  life  with  the  Dutch,  —  all  these  reveal 
the  characteristics  of  the  people  and  the  time. 


But  to  return  once  more  to  the  little  people.  Picture 
study  has  a  valuable  bearing  on  school  lessons  in  Ian- 
guage.  From  the  first,  children  should  be  encouraged  to 
express  their  thoughts  and  feelings  concerning  pictures,, 
not  in  a  stilted,  self-conscious  way,  but  naturally  and 
incidentally,  as  they  would  talk  among  themselves  upon 
any  familiar  subject  of  interest,  the  teacher  remaining 
in  the  background  until  her  help  is  really  needed.  Then, 
from  her  wider  knowledge  and  broader  outlook,  let  her 
guide  them  by  skilful  questions  and  suggestions  to  still 
greater  appreciation  and  fuller  enjoyment.  Sometimes 
the  attention  of  the  entire  school  may  be  held  by  a  gen- 
eral conversation,  at  other  times  that  of  only  a  group ; 
occasionally  it  is  worth  while  to  give  opportunity  for 
separate,  individual  study  and  expression.  Picture  study 
affords  the  teacher  an  excellent  chance  for  the  quiet 
observation  of  disposition,  temperament,  and  home  envi- 
ronment in  individual  children. 

A  simple  description  of  a  picture  may  profitably  form 
the  basis  of  reading,  writing,  and  spelling  lessons  for 
young  children.  Occasional  memory  exercises  in  describ- 
ing a  picture,  one  pupil  telling  all  that  he  can  put  into 
words  and  the  others  recognizing  and  naming  it  from 
his  description,  are  valuable  not  only  as  language  exer- 
cises, but  also  in  strengthening  the  mental  image  of  a 
thing  beautiful  in  itself. 


266  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Pictures  form  admirable  subjects  for  compositions, 
older  pupils  writing  the  "story"  which  they  find  in  them. 
Artists  and  their  works  may  be  as  profitably  studied  as 
authors.  It  is  surprising  to  find  what  a  wealth  of  mate- 
rial pupils  can  sometimes  bring  in  from  their  homes,  once 
their  interest  is  awakened.  The  current  magazines  are 
searched  for  articles  and  illustrations,  the  school  and 
public  libraries  are  explored,  and  delightful  illustrated 
compositions  are  produced  about  Raphael,  Rembrandt, 
Millet,  Rosa  Bonheur,  Landseer,  Abbott  Thayer,  and 
other  favorites. 

We  count  a  person  uneducated  who  has  no  acquaint- 
ance with  Shakespeare,  Scott,  Hawthorne,  Lowell,  and 
Longfellow  ;  yet  artists  like  Raphael,  Murillo,  Van  D^yck, 
Millet,  Breton,  and  Thayer  should  be  equally  familiar  to 
him. 

Picture  study  may  often  be  helpfully  associated  with 
nature  study.  Life  and  motion  appeal  to  little  children 
strongly,  and  are  embodied  in  their  first  attempts  at 
graphic  expression.  Next  to  pictures  with  human  inter- 
est they  enjoy  those  containing  animals,  and,  most  of  all, 
those  in  which  child  life  is  associated  with  familiar  animal 
life.  Fortunately  we  are  rich  in  really  admirable  pictures 
of  this  sort.  From  Millet,  Jacques,  Lerolle,  Mauve,  and 
Monks  we  have  charming  pictures  of  sheep ;  Bonheur, 
Fromentin,  and  Remington  give  us  fine  studies  of  horses, 
Landseer  of  dogs,  Troyon  and  Dupre  of  cows,  and  Ron- 
ner,  Lambert,  and  Dolph  the  most  fascinating  of  cats. 

With  such  an  embarrassment  of  riches,  how  shall  a 
teacher  choose  ?  One  solution  of  the  problem  may  be 
found  in  the  principle  of  correlation  among  school  studies. 
If  cats  are  chosen  for  science  study  in  a  certain  grade, 


PICTURES    IN   THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  267 

cats  are  likely  to  be  also  the  subject  for  reading,  writing, 
and  spelling"  lessons,  for  a  certain  period.  This  may  be- 
an opportune  time  to  lead  the  children's  thought  up  to 
some  charming  artistic  interpretation  of  feline  life  by 
a  famous  painter.  A  temporary  loan  collection  might 
profitably  be  made,  strengthening  the  relations  between 
home  and  school ;  if  conditions  are  favorable,  pupils  might 
each  bring  some  trifling  sum, — ordinarily  spent  for  can- 
dies, —  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  and 
carrying  into  the  home  a  small  print  of  their  favorite 
picture.  This,  however,  should  always  be  put  to  the 
child  as  a  privilege,  never  as  a  requirement. 

Another  determining  factor  in  the  choice  of  pictures  in 
the  primary  school-room  is  the  procession  of  the  seasons 
and  holidays.  At  the  opening  of  school  in  the  fall,  it 
is  natural  both  to  look  back  upon  the  summer  holidays 
and  to  look  forward  to  the  autumn  occupations.  From 
the  haying  of  early  summer  to  the  later  wheat  harvest, 
-how  delightfully  Dupre  and  Breton  tell  us  these  inci- 
dents through  their  pictures  !  -  -  we  pass  to  the  garnering 
of  fruits  and  vegetables.  Nature  is  preparing  for  the 
winter,  the  festival  culminating  in  the  Thanksgiving 
season.  This  would  be  incomplete  without  some  thought 
of  the  early  Pilgrims  and  their  first  Thanksgiving ;  and 
here  we  have  the  most  natural  opportunity  for  studying 
the  beautiful,  old-time  pictures  of  Boughton.  The  reli- 
gious pictures  whose  interest  centres  around  the  Christmas 
story  would  naturally  follow.  In  February,  when  patriot- 
ism is  an  especially  timely  theme,  portraits  of  Washington 
and  Lincoln  and  pictures  of  special  historic  significance 
may  Avell  claim  the  attention.  Then  comes  the  gradual 
awakening  of  the  earth  from  the  long  winter's  sleep. 
Bonheur's  oxen  plough  the  fields  (page  69),  and  Millet's 


268  HOW  TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

Sower  goes  out  to  scatter  seeds ;  the  baby  takes  its  first 
step  out  in  the  garden  where  the  father  is  at  work  (page 
119),  Corot's  nymphs  and  fauns  dance  in  the  dewy  morning 
(page  15),  Dagnan-Bouveret  with  his  Watering  Trough 
gives  us  the  stalwart  young  farmer  pausing  a  moment  in  his 
labor,  and  Breton's  Song  of  the  Lark  carries  the  joy  of  life 
and  springtime  into  the  heart.  All  is  movement,  expect- 
ancy, growth.  "Everything  is  upward  striving."  Eyes 
tired  of  lesson  books  grow  soft  and  dreamy  as  they  gaze 
and  gaze,  through  these  pictures,  beyond  the  school-room 
walls  out  into  the  fields  and  meadows.  Body,  mind,  and 
soul  grow. 

One  great  purpose  of  picture  study  is  that  of  opening 
the  eyes  to  beauty  all  around,  which  an  artist's  trained 
eye  perceives  while  it  is  missed  by  others. 

"...  We're  made  so  that  we  love 
First,  when  we  see  them  painted,  things  we  have  passed 
Perhaps  a  hundred  times  nor  cared  to  see, 
And  so  they  are  better  painted,  —  better  for  us, 
Which  is  the  same  thing.     Art  was  given  for  that; 
God  uses  us  to  help  each  other  so, 
Lending  our  minds  out.  .  .   ." 

Many  a  boy  and  girl,  after  seeing  Rembrandt's  love  for 
beautiful  contrasts  of  light  and  shade,  will  all  the  rest  of 
their  lives  notice  and  enjoy  more  of  the  exquisite  effects 
of  light  and  shade  in  even  the  most  commonplace  sur- 
roundings. That  is  the  essential  service  of  all  great  men, 
—  to  draw  us  up,  in  some  degree,  toward  their  own  level 
of  insight,  enjoyment,  and  aspiration. 


£ 


PICTURES   IN  THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  269 

The  study  of  Literature  would  be  incomplete  without 
the  aid  of  pictures  in  the  school-room.  Not  only  are  por- 
traits of  authors  and  photographs  of  their  homes  and 
haunts  of  interest,  but  our  appreciation  of  a  writer's  works 
may  be  deepened  by  the  sympathetic  interpretations  of  an 
artist.  For  instance,  take  Shakespeare,  Tennyson,  and 
Longfellow,  parts  of  whose  writings  are  now  studied  in 
primary  and  grammar  schools.  The  charm  of  Long- 
fellow's poems  of  colonial  life  and  romance  may  be  still 
farther  heightened  by  associating  the  verse  with  Bough- 
ton's  conceptions  of  The  Return  of  the  Mayflower,  Pilgrim 
Exiles,  and  Puritans  going  to  Church.  We  love  Evange- 
line the  more  for  having  artist  as  well  as  poet  portray  for 
us  the  sad-eyed,  faithful  woman,  who 

"Sat  by  some  nameless  grave,  and  thought  that  perhaps  in  its  bosom 
He  was  already  at  rest;  and  she  longed  to  slumber  beside  him." 

Many  of  the  subjects  treated  by  Tennyson  are  rich  in 
art  interpretations.  In  our  own  country  are  Abbey's  fine 
pictures  of  the  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  of  which  excellent 
reproductions  have  been  made.  Sir  Galahad,  painted  by 
Tennyson's  friend  Watts,  is  a  picture  to  arouse  the  im- 
pulses of  youth  to  high  endeavor. 

When  we  come  to  Shakespeare,  every  child  is  interested 
in  the  vine-embowered  cottage  of  Ann  Hathaway  at  Shot- 
tery,  where  the  young  Will  spent  so  many  happy  hours, 
and  in  the  beautiful  view  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  with  the 
placid  river  in  the  foreground  and  the  church-spire  rising 
from  among  the  trees.  But  these  are  by  no  means  all  to 
which  a  teacher  may  resort.  Becker's  Othello  (page  53)  is 
but  one  instance  of  how  artists  have  delighted  to  portray 
Shakespeare's  characters  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  mas- 
ter.    Millais  has  shown  us  the  Princes  in  the  Tower.     A 


270  HOW   TO    ENJOY   PICTURES 

few  years  ago,  Harper  s  Magazine  published  a  fine  series 
of  Shakespearean  illustrations  by  Abbey,  and  teachers 
having  access  to  those  files  have  a  wealth  of  admirable 
study  material  at  their  command. 

The  impetus  given  to  mural  painting  by  the  Columbian 
Exposition  of  1893  has  resulted  in  some  fine  decorative 
compositions,  many  of  which  are  being  reproduced  in  an 
artistic  manner.  Mention  has  been  made  of  Abbey's 
decorations  in  the  Boston  Public  Library  ;  one  of  Puvis 
de  Chavannes  is  shown  on  page  135.  Portions  of  Sargent's 
Triumph  of  Religion  (see  page  189)  are  suitable  for  school- 
room study,  although  the  composition  as  a  whole  demands 
maturity  of  thought  beyond  that  of  school  children. 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Pilgrims  have  been  portrayed  by 
Sewell  as  a  decoration  for  the  entrance  hall  of  George 
Gould's  home,  and  reproductions  of  these  compositions 
might  well  be  given  a  place  in  a  high-school  class-room. 

These  are  but  a  few  suggestive  examples  of  the  associa- 
tion of  art  and  literature  in  school  life.1  Opportunities 
for  such  helpful  coordination  of  studies  are  practically 
innumerable,  as  those  teachers  find  who  once  become 
interested  in  the  idea. 


Mythology  and  legend  were  written  in  pictorial  forms 
long  before  the  alphabet  came  into  use.  Our  knowledge 
of  Egyptian  life  has  been  largely  obtained  from  picture 
writings  found  in  their  tombs  and  temples,  which  tell  us 
of   their    beliefs,   customs,  and  occupations.     Combining 

1  The  connection  suggested  here  may  sometimes  be  helpfully  presented 
in  reverse  order  ;  thus,  occasionally,  a  bit  of  good  literature  sometimes 
seems  to  express  the  same  feeling  that  an  artist  has  put  into  a  picture. 
(See  pages  18,  23.)  Older  pupils  like  to  make  this  association  in  their  own 
minds. 


PICTURES   IN   THE   SCHOOL-KOOM  271 

fact  and  tradition  in  a  most  significant  manner,  these  show 
how  their  religious  beliefs,  which  to  us  may  seem  but 
myths,  formed  an  integral  part  of  their  very  lives.  Art 
is  the  expression  of  the  beliefs  and  aspirations  of  a  people, 
and  anthropology  would  be  incomplete  without  its  light 
upon  the  pages  of  the  past. 

Among  the  Greeks  we  find  religion,  literature,  and  art 
inseparable.  In  Greek  literature  the  gods  hold  familiar 
intercourse  with  mortals,  aiding  them  in  their  achieve- 
ments and  punishing  them  for  their  misdeeds.  What 
more  natural  than  that  art  should  give  tangible  form  to 
the  imaginings  of  the  Greeks,  and  embody  some  of  their 
finest  conceptions?  Whether  the  little  children  study 
Hawthorne's  Wonder  Book  and  Tanglewood  Tales,  or 
the  older  ones  read  3Igtlis  of  Grreece  and  Home  and  The 
Age  of  Fable,  or  make  a  beginning  in  Latin  and  Greek 
readings,  a  wealth  of  art  material  is  at  their  disposal 
in  reproductions,  both  of  paintings  and  sculptures.  With 
young  children  the  illustration  should  usually  accom- 
pany the  story.  In  some  instances  it  might  precede  it, 
and  so  awaken  the  children's  interest  beforehand  ;  in 
others  it  might  be  well  to  have  the  story,  and  give  the 
children  an  opportunity  for  exercising  their  imagination 
in  original  illustration  before  showing  them  the  artist's 
interpretation.  Or,  again,  the  children  might  be  given 
the  picture  and  allowed  to  imagine  and  write  the  story  in 
it  before  reading  the  text. 

Older  pupils  might  make  a  more  comprehensive  stud}r 
of  a  given  subject,  as  suggested  in  connection  with  the 
"  Madonna  "  idea  (page  204).  For  example,  choosing  a  sub- 
ject of  wide  interest,  as  Athene  (Minerva),  Apollo,  or 
Hermes  (Mercury),  it  would  be  interesting  to  study  and 
compare  interpretations   of   the   one  subject  by  different 


272  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

artists,  trying  to  discern  the  thought  of  each  artist  and 
the  particular  characteristic  or  episode  which  he  has  de- 
picted. In  this  as  in  all  picture  study,  the  elements  of 
beauty  should  be  sought  :  is  it  the  rhythmic  lines,  the 
relation  of  areas,  the  harmony  of  mass-composition  and 
idea,  or  a  blending  of  all  these,  which  gives  us  the  sense 
of  ideal  beauty  ? 

We  must  bring  to  pictures,  as  to  literature,  our  best 
effort  at  interpretation,  if  they  are  to  yield  up  to  us 
their  deepest  meaning.  "  Though  we  travel  the  world 
over  to  find  the  beautiful,  we  must  carry  it  with  us  or 
we  find  it  not." 


Time  and  effort  in  geographical  study  may  be  econo- 
mized by  the  use  of  pictures.  Natural  divisions  of  land 
and  water  are  more  clearly  and  easily  comprehended 
through  a  typical  picture  than  through  painfully  mem- 
orized verbal  descriptions.  The  Sea,  by  Alexander 
Harrison,  gives  a  vastly  better  idea  of  the  grandeur  of 
the  ocean  than  any  definition  in  a  text-book.  To 
Gerome  we  are  indebted  for  wonderful  interpretations 
of  the  lonely  desert,  to  Turner  for  exquisitely  beautiful 
pictures  of  Venice,  the  bride  of  the  sea.  Such  pictures, 
when  obtainable,  give  children  not  only  topographical 
facts,  such  as  they  might  get  from  photographs  direct 
after  nature,  but  also  a  spirit  and  feeling  which  are 
greatly  to  be  desired.  Of  course,  photographs  direct 
from  nature  are  also  valuable. 

The  wall  paintings  of  the  early  Egyptians  show  us,  as 
no  words  could,  the  occupations  and  industries  of  the 
time.  Blacksmithing,  bricklaying,  and  glass-blowing 
were  depicted  in  a  most  graphic  manner,  and  still  make 


PICTURES   IN    THE   SCHOOL-ROOM  273 

those  early  days  seem  very  real.  Modern  artists  arc 
carrying  a  similar  idea  into  mural  decoration  ;  Galland's 
Manual  Arts  frieze  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  Paris,  and 
Baudoin's  Cornfield  frieze  are  fine  examples.  Excellent 
illustrations  of  modern  industries  and  occupations  may 
be  obtained  from  the  current  magazines. 

The  life  and  customs  of  different  nations  have  been 
pleasingly  shown  through  paintings  now  obtainable  in 
reproduction.  Thoren  has  helped  interpret  Russia  by 
his  vivid  portrayals  of  scenes  of  life  and  travel.  Schreyer 
has  given  us  spirited  sketches  of  Arabs  and  their  adven- 
turous lives.  Curiosity  (page  43)  gives  us  in  a  small  com- 
position a  great  deal  of  attractive  information  concerning 
the  every-day  life  of  Venice  as  well  as  its  peculiar  street 
architecture.  Much  is  told  of  the  simple,  provincial 
French  peasantry  in  the  Primary  School  in  Brittany  (page 
215).  Mesdag,  in  his  sketches  of  the  Holland  coast,  has 
given  us  a  familiar  insight  into  the  lives  of  the  Dutch 
fisher-folk,  through  compositions  of  artistic  merit.  Blom- 
mers  has  shown  us  child  life  ;  and  Hoecker's  charming 
Girl  with  Cat  shows  a  quaint  Dutch  costume  to  advan- 
tage, and,  while  emphasizing  external  differences,  con- 
tains that  "touch  of  nature"  which  makes  the  whole 
world  kin.  In  using  such  pictures  as  these,  the  teacher 
will  do  well  to  distinguish  clearly,  in  her  own  mind,  be- 
tween those  which  have  genuinely  artistic  qualities  and 
those  which  are  valuable  only  (or  chiefly)  as  convenient 
sources  of  information.  Pictures  which  mainly  give  in- 
formation or  "  tell  a  story "  are  indispensable  in  their 
own  way,  but  teachers  and  children  should  both  realize 
the  underlying  difference  between  those  and  really  great 
works  of  art. 


274  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

General  history  covers  too  broad  a  Held  to  admit  of 
detailed  suggestions  here  as  to  the  use  of  pictures  ;  but, 
as  a  rule,  all  historic  study  in  the  elementary  schools 
should  include  some  thought  of  the  best  art  produced 
by  the  nation  or  the  period  under  consideration.  Text- 
books on  art  history  are  helpful  in  this  connection,  giv- 
ing information  concerning  art  and  artists  to  complement 
that  concerning  authors  and  literature. i  The  art  cata- 
logues of  dealers  in  photographs  give  necessary  details 
as  to  pictures  (or  photographs  of  sculptures)  by  the 
artists  mentioned  in  text-books,  and  there  is  a  growing 
disposition  to  have  school  libraries,  especially  those  of 
high  schools,  equipped  with  well-chosen  photographs  for 
reference.  Where  fine  photographs  are  inaccessible,  one 
turns  gladly  to  the  less  expensive  reproductions.  One 
can  often  obtain,  through  a  public  library  or  by  other 
means,  back  numbers  of  standard  magazines  in  which 
fine  reproductions  of  the  best  things  in  art  have  been 
printed,  together  with  valuable  articles  upon  the  artists 
themselves,  giving  insight  into  some  special  phase  of 
the  subject  under  consideration  at  the  time. 

In  studying  American  history,  incidents  in  connection 
with  the  early  settlement  of  the  country  may  be  fixed 
through  pictures.2  History  and  geography  are  so  closely 
allied,  the  suggestions  already  made  concerning  study 
of  the  occupations  and  industries  of  a  people  would  be 
equally  applicable  to  the  study  of  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions. A  child  gains  more  through  seeing  a  picture  of 
the  first  steamboat  or  of  the  cotton-gin  than  from  the 
most  minute  verbal  descriptions. 

The  nation's  leaders  have  a  warm  place  in  the  hearts  of 

1  See  Appendix,  page  289. 

2  For  example,  the  pictures  by  Boughton,  mentioned  on  page  269. 


PICTURES   IN   THE    SCHOOL-ROOM  275 

American  children,  Washington  and  Lincoln  most  of  all. 
It  is  now  possible  to  obtain  excellent  reproductions  of  the 
Gilbert  Stuart  and  other  portraits  of  George  Washington 
and  Lady  Washington.  Portraits  of  Lincoln  by  De  Camp 
and  others  are  obtainable,  as  well  as  photographs  of  the 
St.  Gaudens'  statue  of  Lincoln  in  Lincoln  Park.  Each 
year  places  at  our  disposal  more  excellent  material  illus- 
trative of  the  nation's  life  in  the  persons  of  her  greatest 
men. 

The  crisis  through  which  the  country  passed  during 
Washington's  time  yielded  fine  material  for  pictorial  ex- 
pression. Willard's  Spirit  of  '76  may  well  be  hung  in 
every  class-room  where  the  war  of  the  revolution  is 
being  studied.  Trumbull's  Declaration  of  Independence 
is  always  of  interest  in  this  connection.  In  the  selection 
of  battle  scenes  the  most  careful  discrimination  is  neces- 
sary. Carnage  is  an  inevitable  result  of  war,  but  pictures 
which  display  the  ghastly  details  of  the  battle-field  are 
out  of  place  in  a  school-room.  Let  us  rather  emphasize 
the  spirit  of  patriotism,  as  in  Willard's  picture  already 
mentioned,  and  the  common  humanity  which  no  differ- 
ence of  opinion  can  wholly  crush  out  of  the  hearts  of 
men.  Thus  Hovenden's  In  the  Hands  of  the  Enemy,  in 
which  the  blue  and  the  gray  come  together  in  common 
sympathy,  is  a  truer  expression  of  the  sentiment  of  to-day 
than  any  picture  which  tends  to  keep  alive  sectional  bit- 
terness. 

Photographs  of  historic  buildings  and  mementos  are  of 
great  educational  value,  especially  in  this  country,  where 
we  have  so  little  historic  perspective.  They  serve  to 
keep  alive  our  best  traditions,  and  to  inculcate  a  spirit 
of  reverence  so  sadly  needed.  In  this  connection  the  me- 
morials to  the  nation's  heroes  are   of  significance.     The 


276  HOW   TO   ENJOY  PICTURES 

beautiful  tombs  of  Garfield  and  Grant,  recording  their 
achievements  as  was  done  by  the  early  peoples,  and  the 
statues  to  Nathan  Hale  at  Hartford,  Colonel  Shaw  in 
Boston,  and  General  Logan  in  Chicago,  are  all  valuable 
object  lessons  in  training  for  citizenship  in  a  free  republic. 
The  architecture  of  all  peoples  and  ages  is  a  rich  inher- 
itance, and  the  children  have  a  right  to  share  it.  How 
can  we  help  them  to  know  and  to  love  these  beautiful  art 
creations  into  which  the  very  lives  of  generations  of  men 
have  been  builded  ? 

"  The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome 
And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome 
Wrought  with  a  sad  sincerity. 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free. 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew  ; 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew." 

In  one  of  the  leading  American  art  schools,  whose  walls 
are  enriched  with  fine  reproductions  of  the  choicest  paint- 
ings of  the  world,  the  entire  staircase  and  hallway  are 
hung  with  reproductions  of  historic  architecture  and  orna- 
ment. Beginning  with  the  earliest  historic  remains  of  the 
ancient  nations,  the  development  from  one  epoch  or  style 
to  another  may  be  clearly  traced,  and  the  student  may,  if 
he  will,  avail  himself  of  this  complete  epitome  of  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  world.  Here  is  a  valuable  suggestion  for 
the  public  schools.  Their  halls  and  staircases  might  well 
be  educationally  serviceable  to  the  hundreds  of  children 
who  pass  to  and  fro,  so  many  times  during  the  week. 
This  need  not  necessarily  banish  from  the  regular  class- 
rooms such  examples  of  historic  art  as  are  peculiarly 
appropriate  to  the  work  of  any  special  grade  nor  such  as 
possess  a  permanent  charm  for  the  pupils.  It  would,  on 
the  contrary,  enlarge  their  idea  of  their  own  especial  pict- 


PICTURES   IN   THE   SCH0OL-R< )( >M  277 

ure,  by  giving  it  an  environment  or  context,  so  to  speak, 
and  showing  its  relation  to  the  greater  whole. 

If  it  is  especially  desired  to  emphasize  American  his- 
tory, the  same  idea  of  a  hall  decoration  could  be  carried 
out  with  the  patriotic  motive  prominent,  beginning  with 
the  discoverers  and  progressing  to  the  present  time. 

Where  teaching  is  closely  specialized,  it  may  be  well  to 
have  a  Greek  art  room  where  Greek  is  taught,  a  Roman 
room  for  Latin  recitations,  and  to  have  the  same  idea 
carried  out  in  rooms  where  the  modern  languages  are 
studied.  This  plan  is  already  in  operation  in  many  high 
schools,  where  portfolio  collections  of  pictures  — ■  listed  as 
library  material  —  supplement  the  pictures  on  the  walls. 
This  suggestion  is  equally  applicable  to  recitation  rooms 
for  literature  and  history  classes.  In  fact,  all  the  art  re- 
sources of  a  building  are  called  into  play  in  the  intelli- 
gent teaching  of  history  to  older  pupils.1 


Picture  study  is  an  essential  part  of  a  public  school 
course  in  elementary  art  study.  While  children  should 
be  given  abundant  opportunity  for  original  expression, 
they  need  also  to  form  right  ideals  of  art,  just  as  they 
need  to  cultivate  good  taste  in  literature. 

It  is  often  well  to  let  small  children  first  give  their 
own  original  expression,  with  brush  or  pencil,  to  a  story 
or  description;  then,  after  they  have  done  their  best, 
they  may  be  helped  by  seeing  how  an  artist  has  expressed 
the  same  or  a  similar  thought.     Very  young  children  are, 

1  The  use  of  stereopticon  views,  accompanied  by  an  explanatory  talk, 
is  a  profitable  way  of  becoming  acquainted  with  historic  art,  while,  for 
individual  use,  many  pupils  have  drawing-books  containing  examples, 
and  there  are  inexpensive  prints  to  be  had  for  note-book  illustrations. 


278  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

in  fact,  usually  more  interested  in  their  own  drawings 
than  in  pictures  made  by  others.  Not  until  they  have 
had  opportunity  for  self-expression  do  they  become  recep- 
tive. One  of  the  most  puzzling  educational  problems  is 
how  to  lead  children  from  the  expression  of  some  nebu- 
lous, preconceived  notion  of  a  thing  (producing  usually 
a  curious  medley  of  lines  or  else  a  diagram  standing  sym- 
bolically for  the  definite  idea)  toward  the  expression  of 
what  they  really  do  see.  For  example,  they  are  at  first 
entirely  satisfied  to  draw  a  large  circle  with  lines  at  the 
side  for  arms  and  lines  from  the  bottom  for  legs,  and  call 
the  result  "a  boy."  It  recpuires  patient,  tactful  effort  to 
lead  them  to  really  see  and  express  that  the  body  has 
both  neck  and  trunk.  In  this  connection  it  is  helpful  for 
children  to  see  not  only  a  real  boy  posed  as  a  model,  but 
also  some  good  picture  made  bjr  an  artist,  e.g.  Van  Dyck's 
Children  of  Charles  I. 

Literature,  histoiy,  geography,  and  natural  science  all 
afford  opportunities  for  illustrative  drawing  to  be  done 
by  the  children.  Some  conceptions,  for  instance,  those  of 
a  mountain,  a  growing  plant,  or  a  piece  of  physical  appa- 
ratus, can  be  expressed  more  clearly  and  satisfactorily 
through  drawing  than  through  words.  But  the  descrip- 
tion of  objects  by  means  of  drawing  is  not  the  highest  use 
of  art,  any  more  than  the  description  of  objects  by  means 
of  words  is  the  highest  use  of  language.  Not  until  the 
child  becomes  creative  and  expresses  what  he  thinks  and 
feels  in  an  individual  way,  does  he  begin  to  use  either 
drawing  or  language  in  its  highest  sense.  The  teacher's 
province  is  to  help  him  to  develop  true  and  beautiful 
ideas,  through  the  best  things  in  literature,  art,  and  life, 
and  to  train  him  in  technical  processes  ;  then  to  give  him 
opportunity  for  self-expression  and  hold  him  to  his  own 


PICTUEES    IN    THE   SCHOOL-BOOM  279 

best  possibilities.  Picture  study  can  do  much  to  aid 
pupils  in  original  art  expression  ;  but,  for  this  purpose, 
only  the  best  pictures  should  be  held  up  as  examples. 
Bad  composition  and  poor  drawing  should  be  excluded 
from  the  school-room  as  carefully  as  triviality  or  vulgar- 
ity of  subject. 

"  Beauty,  which  is  the  natural  food  of  a  healthy  imagination, 
should  be  sought  after  by  every  one  who  wishes  to  achieve  the 
great  end  of  existence, — -that  is,  to  make  the  most  of  himself. 
If  it  is  true  .  .  .  that  man  liveth  not  by  books  alone,  it  is  equally 
true  that  he  liveth  not  by  knowledge  alone.  .  .  .  Cultivate 
admiration.  It  is  by  admiration  only  of  what  is  beautiful  and 
sublime  that  we  can  mount  up  a  few  steps  toward  the  likeness  of 
what  we  admire."  x 

Very  few  of  the  public  school  children  of  to-day  may 
prove  to  be  themselves  artists,  but  almost  every  child  can 
gradually  learn  to  appreciate  and  enjoy  what  is  best  in 
the  works  of  the  great  masters.  Differences  of  tempera- 
ment incline  individuals  toward  one  branch  of  literature 
rather  than  another,  for  example,  toward  poetry  more 
than  toward  history  or  vice  versa,  and  similar  divergencies 
of  taste  are  to  be  expected  in  the  matter  of  pictures. 
But  it  remains  possible  for  teachers  to  see  that  no  kind 
of  truly  great  art  remains  absolutely  blank  and  meaning- 
less to  the  children  under  their  charge. 

Simple  exercises  in  the  study  of  picture  composition, 
with  older  pupils,  may  be  made  of  great  practical  value, 
leading  both  toward  the  better  appreciation  of  artists' 
masterpieces  and  toward  improvement  in  the  quality  of 
a  pupil's  own  drawings  and  sketches.  It  is,  however,  a 
safe  rule  to  postpone  definite,  explicit  study  of  picture 
composition  until  children  are  old  enough  to  be  working 

1  John  Stuart  Blackie  in  Self-Culture. 


280  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

out  its  underlying  principles  in  their  own  drawing.  Even 
then,  all  will  probably  agree  that  there  should  be  no  pict- 
ure analysis  just  for  the  sake  of  the  analysis  itself.  The 
analytical  interpretation  o£  a  picture  should  be  used  only 
as  a  means  to  fuller  appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  what  is 
especially  admirable  in  any  given  picture.  (See  the  notes 
on  Botticelli's  Madonna  of  the  Louvre,  page  1-47,  and  others.) 

As  a  beginning  in  the  study  of  composition,  pupils  may 
advantageously  be  led  to  think  about  the  shapes  of  pict- 
ures. For  instance,  the  majority  of  pictures  are  oblong 
in  shape  ;  the  reason  or  purpose  underneath  this  fact 
should  be  sought.  A  child  can  readily  see  that  the  circle 
allows  variety  only  in  size,  the  square  allows  variety  in  size 
and  position,  while  in  the  oblong  we  may  have  variety  in 
size,  position,  and  proportion  ;  it  is  plain  that  this  adaj^ta- 
bility  of  the  oblong  has  led  to  its  wide  use  by  artists. 

An  exercise  in  designing  oblongs  of  pleasing  propor- 
tions again  sends  a  pupil  to  the  masters.  Is  a  simple, 
arithmetical  proportion  as  pleasing  as  one  more  subtile  ? 
which  holds  our  interest  longer  ?  Why  ?  A  pupil  can 
be  led  to  see  that  a  long,  narrow  oblong  seems  exactly 
right  for  Guido  Reni's  Aurora  and  a  wide  one  equally 
satisfactory  for  Millet's  Shepherdess  (page  281)  ;  that  the 
enclosing  oblong  of  Burne-Jones'  Hope  is  best  vertical, 
and  that  of  his  Circe  (page  125)  horizontal. 

Pupils  may  profitably  be  asked  to  design  oblongs  with 
a  definite  thought  for  a  picture  in  mind,  as,  for  instance, 
a  marine  view,  a  landscape,  a  figure  study.  Such  practi- 
cal problems  as  these  quicken  observation  and  set  young 
minds  to  working  in  fruitful  ways. 

Divisions  of  the  enclosing  form  can  also  be  studied  to 
advantage.  If  a  landscape  is  in  question,  shall  one  have 
more    sky    or   more  land '?   if   a   marine,    shall   there    be 


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282 


HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 


more  of  sky  or  of  water  ?  Again  we  learn  from  the 
artists.  Turning  to  Millet,  Troyon,  Corot,  Turner,  they 
tell  us  to  emphasize  the  more  interesting  portion,  or  the 
portion  which  we  wish  to  make  the  more  interesting. 
Corot  might  well  give  often  a  large  proportion  of  his 
picture  area  to  the  sky,  which  forms  so  luminous  a  back- 
ground for  his  wonderful  trees,  while  Millet,  intent  upon 
portraying  human  life  and  human  interests,  can  spare  only 
enough  sky  space  to  give  a  pleasing  balance  to  his  pictures. 
In  this  connection  a  study  of  the  structural  lines  of 
pictures  is  of  value.     Millet  is  considered  a  master  of 

composition  ;  let  us  turn 
once  more  to  his  Shep- 
herdess (page  281),  and 
study  its  structure.  No- 
tice into  what  beauti- 
fully proportioned  parts 
the  horizon  line  divides 
the  whole  area,  and 
see  the  subtile  relation 
of  one  portion  of  the 
side  verticals  to  another.  Did  this  simply  happen,  or  did 
the  artist  consciously  aim  to  produce  beauty  ?  Again, 
observe  the  placing  of  the  most  prominent  figure,  the 
shepherdess.  Is  that  the  most  pleasing  position  for  her? 
Fancy  her  moved  to  the  right  or  the  left ;  do  we  like 
the  composition  as  well?  Finally,  draw  an  oblong  of 
the  same  proportions  as  the  original  picture,  divide  it 
horizontally  by  the  line  of  the  horizon  and  vertically  by 
the  axis  of  the  girl's  figure,  and  see  what  beautifully 
harmonious  areas  are  the  result  (Figure  4). 

Such  study  may  profitably  be  followed  by  an  exercise 
in  designing  the  structural  lines  of  a  picture,  for  example, 


Fig.  4. 


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a 


8 


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284  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

a  marine  view  with  a  boat  or  lighthouse,  a  landscape  with 
fence  and  tree,  a  hillside  with  a  telegraph  pole,  or  what- 
ever suggests  itself  to  the  pupil. 

Perhaps  the  pupil  wishes  to  make  an  imaginative  com- 
position to  illustrate  a  familiar  poem.  It  is  often  well 
to  let  him  at  first  struggle  unaided,  that  he  may  realize 
his  need  of  help  ;  then,  after  he  has  tried  his  best,  he  has 
a  right  to  expect  assistance.  Sometimes  the  teacher's 
own  sketches  of  similar  subjects  will  be  suggestive,  but 
no  one  can  afford  to  ignore  the  masters.  Suppose  one  is 
trying  to  express  a  sky.  If  a  placid,  clear,  serene  effect 
is  desired,  we  turn  for  hints  to  Rosa  Bonheur's  Ploughing 
(page  69),  or,  again,  to  the  Shepherdess.  If  we  want  to 
express  wind  and  coming  storm,  Rembrandt's  Landscape 
with  Windmill  (page  283),  will  be  suggestive.  An  admi- 
rable exercise  in  connection  with  original  brush  composition 
is  to  compare  different  pictures  for  the  hidden  "  stories  " 
in  them.  How  do  the  earth  and  sky  masses  in  Troyon's 
Oxen  going  to  Labor  and  Millet's  Shepherdess  tell  the 
time  of  day?  Why  is  the  earth  mass  in  the  former  rela- 
tively darker  than  in  the  latter  ?  Again,  why  is  the  out- 
line of  the  earth  mass  against  the  sky  so  much  more 
pronounced  in  Millet's  Sower  than  in  his  Shepherdess? 
What  does  it  indicate  concerning  the  contour  of  the  coun- 
try ?  Are  these  effects  true  to  nature?  Is  the  earth 
mass  relatively  lighter  near  midday  than  at  sunrise  or 
sunset  ?  Why  ?  Are  distant  outlines  as  distinct  as  near 
outlines  ?  Recall  personal  observations  of  nature.  Note, 
in  the  accompanying  print  (page  285)  of  The  Willoivs,  by 
Corot,  the  exquisite  blending  of  the  feathery  foliage 
outlines  into  the  tone  of  the  sky ;  "  Silvery  fountains 
transfixed  in  air,"  Ruskin  calls  the  early  spring  foliage. 
Observe  also  the  suggestion  of   the  freshness  of   recent 


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286  HOW   TO   ENJOY   PICTURES 

rain.  The  trunks  are  still  dark  with  moisture,  and  are 
reflected  in  the  pool  which  has  not  yet  been  absorbed 
into  the  soil,  so  full  of  moisture  it  already  is  from  freshet 
and  shower. 

Masses  of  light  and  dark,  as  well  as  areas  formed  by 
structural  lines,  are  an  element  of  beauty  in  a  composi- 
tion. This  principle  is  charmingly  illustrated  by  Corot, 
not  only  as  to  balance  of  parts,  but  also  in  the  exceeding- 
beauty  of  the  shapes  or  contours  of  light  and  dark  masses. 
See  Morning  (page  15)  and  The  Willows  (page  285). 

Concentration,  another  important  principle,  is  well 
illustrated  in  Rembrandt's  Landscape  with  Windmill 
(page  283),  where  the  interest  in  both  sky  and  earth 
masses  focusses  in  the  mill,  based  upon  solid  rock,  its  arms 
reaching  up  into  the  boundless  sky.  See  also  The 
Spinner  (page  107),  Paid  Revere's  Ride  (page  207),  and 
others  of  the  illustrations  in  preceding  pages. 

Subordination,  still  another  principle  of  composition, 
finds  admirable  expression  in  Rembrandt's  Pilgrims  at 
Emmaus  (page  170).  We  find  beautiful  balance  of  the 
parts  of  a  composition  in  Turner's  Fighting  Temeraire 
(page  21).  Unity  is  exemplified  in  Botticelli's  Madonna 
of  the  Louvre  (page  117),  in  the  Mona  Lisa  of  Da  Vinci 
(page  77),  and  in  .the  family  portrait  group  by  Rubens 
(page  87).  The  teacher  who  begins  leading  pupils  to 
look  for  beautif ul  exemplifications  of  these  art  principles  in 
the  works  of  the  masters,  finds  endless  wealth  of  material 
for  such  study. 

Great  pictures  are  thus  indispensable  to  the  elementary 
study  of  art  in  the  public  school-room,  where  children  are 
preparing  both  to  receive  from  the  world  and  to  give  to 
the  world.  All  earnest,  honest  observation  of  good 
pictures  brings  to  the  student  of  drawing  larger  concep- 


PICTURES    IX   THE    SCHOOL-ROOM  287 

tions  of  the  possibilities  of  art,  now  insight  1 1 1 i < >  strong 
and  beautiful  ways  of  working,  and  deepened  incentives 
to  personal  endeavor.  On  the  other  hand,  even  the  most 
elementary  attempts  at  art  expression  on  his  own  part 
increase  his  power  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  work 
of  masters.  The  highest  purpose  of  picture  study  in  pub- 
lic schools  is  thus  many-sided:  it  helps  open  a  child's 
eyes  to  the  beauty  in  the  world  around  him ;  it  helps 
bring  him  into  inspiring  communion  with  master  minds 
in  all  the  ages  ;  and  it  helps  bring  out  the  best  of  his 
own  creative  powers. 


APPENDIX 


One  who  wishes  to  begin  reading  along  the  lines  of  art 
history  and  art  criticism  is  sometimes  at  a  loss  to  know 
which  way  to  turn.  Large  libraries  offer  the  student  an 
embarrassment  of  riches  ;  small  libraries  sometimes  need 
to  be  furnished  with  desirable  books.  In  both  cases 
careful  selection  becomes  important. 

The  following  titles,  among  others,  will  be  found  relia- 
ble guides  to  good  literature  on  the  subjects  indicated. 
The  order  in  which  the  works  are  mentioned  is  not  meant 
to  indicate  any  comparison  of  their  merits. 

ART   HISTORIES 

W.  H.  Goodyear      ....  History  of  Art. 

N.  D'Anvers An  Elementary  History  of  Art. 

Wilhelm  Liibke      ....  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Art. 

C.  E.  Clement History  of  Art  for  Beginners. 

J.  C.  Van  Dyke  (Editor)     .  College  Histories  of  Art. 

(These  treat  of  Art,  including  all  three  branches,  Architecture,  Sculpture, 
and  Painting). 

J.  Fergusson  n History  of  Architecture. 

C.  E.  Clement Outlines  of  the  History  of  Architecture. 

A.  D.  F.  Hamlin     ....     History  of  Architecture. 

Lucy  M.  Mitchell    ....     History  of  Ancient  Sculpture. 
Frothingham  and  Marquand    History  of  Sculpture. 

C.  E.  Clement Outlines  of  the  History  of  Painting. 

R.  Miither History  of  Modern  Painting. 

d.  C.  Van  Dyke History  of  Painting. 

u  289 


290  APPENDIX 


LIVES   OF   ARTISTS 

Sarah  Tvtler  '   ^ie  *^  Masters  anc^  their  Pictures. 

i  Modern  Painters  and  their  Paintings. 

C.  E.  Clement Stories  of  Art  and  Artists. 

TT  n  ■  [  Life  of  Michael  Anq;elo. 

II.  Grimm ° 

(  Life  of  Raphael. 

(  Early  Flemish  Painters. 
Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  .     .  -  Life  and  Times  of  Titian. 

'  Raphael,  his  Life  and  Works. 
M.  F.  Sweetser Artists'  Biographies. 

(A  series  of  small,  inexpensive  volumes  on  famous  painters  of  different 
countries,  published  by  Houghton,  MitHin  &  Co.,  Boston.) 

Various  Authors     ....     Biographies  of  Great  Artists. 

(Another  series  of  small  volumes,  illustrated  but  inexpensive,  published  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York  City.) 


VOLUMES    OF    COMMENT,    EXPLANATION,    AND 

CRITICISM 

Charles  Blanc The    Grammar   of    Painting    and    En- 
graving. 

(  Art  for  Art's  Sake. 
J.  C.  Van  Dyke )  The  Principles  of  Art. 

(Old  Dutch  Masters. 

^  The  Graphic  Arts. 
P.  G.  Hamerton      .     .     .     .     Thoughts  about  Art. 

'  Man  in  Art. 

C.  E.  Clement A  Handbook  of  Legendary  and  Mytho- 

logic  Art. 

J.  A.  Symonds The  Renaissance  in  Italy. 

(Vol.  III.  in  the  series  of  five  volumes  treats  especially  on  the  Fine  Arts  of 
the  Renaissance.) 

E.  M.  Kuril The  Madonna  in  Art. 

George  Moore Modern  Art. 

W.  C.  Brownell      ....     French  Painting. 

t  u     r>     i  ■  '  Modern  Painters. 

John  Kuskin - 

<  The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture. 

John  La  Farge Considerations  on  Painting. 

Eugene  Veron    .....     ^Esthetics. 


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